Jordan Kahn
Beautiful People 2012
By Robert Cameron
Photographed by Douglas Adesko
Styled by J. Everette Perry
It's not surprising that Jordan Kahn's Red Medicine is considered one of the best new restaurants in L.A. He's been a foodie since he could walk. Growing up in Savannah, Georgia, he regularly helped his grandmother in the kitchen. Kahn was so obsessed with the Food Network, that his mother gave him the French Laundry cookbook for his 13th birthday. He graduated from Johnson & Wales in record time at 17, and was then hired by his hero, Thomas Keller, as the youngest ever member of the French Laundry kitchen.
A decade later, the 28-year-old Kahn opened his modern "Vietnamese canteen" with friends Noah Ellis and Adam Fleischman. "Vietnamese cooking picks you up and restores you," explains Kahn.
Kahn sources from local farms and markets to create his hyper-seasonal menu. In the wild canyons and mountains just outside L.A., he finds glades of edible -- wood sorrel, mugwort, oxali -- many of which he brings back to the restaurant. "You know how the watercress you buy at the farmers' market is so much better than the stuff from the supermarket? Well, wild watercress is that much better," he says.
The result is food that's comforting and familiar yet bracingly new. His extraordinary platings are abstract art; like mini Jackson Pollocks and Salvador Dalis, which are so astonishing and full of spontaneity that you almost don't want to eat them and destroy their beauty. But of course, you do.
Jordan wears a jacket by All Saints and shirt by A.P.C.
MEET THE REST OF OUR 2012 BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE
A decade later, the 28-year-old Kahn opened his modern "Vietnamese canteen" with friends Noah Ellis and Adam Fleischman. "Vietnamese cooking picks you up and restores you," explains Kahn.
Kahn sources from local farms and markets to create his hyper-seasonal menu. In the wild canyons and mountains just outside L.A., he finds glades of edible -- wood sorrel, mugwort, oxali -- many of which he brings back to the restaurant. "You know how the watercress you buy at the farmers' market is so much better than the stuff from the supermarket? Well, wild watercress is that much better," he says.
The result is food that's comforting and familiar yet bracingly new. His extraordinary platings are abstract art; like mini Jackson Pollocks and Salvador Dalis, which are so astonishing and full of spontaneity that you almost don't want to eat them and destroy their beauty. But of course, you do.
Jordan wears a jacket by All Saints and shirt by A.P.C.
MEET THE REST OF OUR 2012 BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE
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