Dohyung 'Demie' Kim

Seoul

Sustainability champion, superstar of the Korean bar scene and owner of the industry’s sunniest smile

Born in Busan to restaurant-owning parents, Kim’s meteoric cocktail career could quite easily have taken a very different turn as originally, he pursued a career as a barista over one as a bartender.

However, one fateful visit his college’s cocktail club was all it took to call Kim to the artisan craft of cocktail making and set him on the path to becoming one of Asia’s most recognisable and celebrated bartenders.

Kim’s career took off when he was bartending at The W Hotel in Seoul, where he was first exposed to the world of international cocktail competitions. Seeing these bartending juggernauts in the flesh inspired him to start entering competitions himself and in turn, lead to him being crowned the youngest Korean winner of Diageo Reserve’s World Class Bartender of the Year Competition in 2016. After realising an international spotlight necessitated a grasp of international languages, Kim studied English while taking the helm at Alice in Cheongdam as head bartender, all before opening his own venture, Zest, in December 2020 with three partners, Sean Woo, Jisu Park and Noah Kwon.

Zest gave Kim the opportunity to develop his almost obsessive focus on holistic sustainability that transcends what goes into the glass to also encompass the preservation and promotion of the ever-growing Korean bar scene. With his signature smile, pure talent and perseverance, Kim has earned a global reputation as a pioneer of contemporary cocktail culture at the vanguard of a new wave of Korean bars, which has rightly won him the most prestigious peer voted for accolade on the continent as part of Asia’s 50 Best Bars 2024.

Watch the video and read the article with Kim:

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