The South Korean chef on hard work, multi-cultural inspiration and marrying pastry and art.
Pastry chef Eunji Lee has a distinctly romantic relationship to her craft. As a child, she stumbled across a baking competition on TV and felt an instant connection. "To me, it looked like edible art," she remembers. "I couldn't believe people could eat those cakes."
Those creations and the happiness people seemed to get from eating them made a lasting impression. "I can only compare it to falling for someone at first sight," Lee says.
It has proven to be a lasting love. More than 20 years later, Lee has been named the winner of the North America's Best Pastry Chef Award 2026, sponsored by Valrhona, as part of North America's 50 Best Restaurants.
Eunji Lee opened Lysée in 2022.
At Lysée, the chef's pastry boutique in New York's Flatiron District, she has created a place of pure fantasy: from the glinting mother-of-pearl accents on the walls to the trompe l'oeil confections that sit pride of place in the upstairs gallery, a sense of enchantment permeates the space. It is, according to Lee, "dessert heaven".
Laying the foundations
The charm and whimsy that characterise both the space and Lee's creations belie the exceptional effort and skill that have gone into building her career. Originally from South Korea, she moved to France at 19 to study pastry at the Institute National de la Boulangerie Pâtisserie in Rouen and later at the Ecole Ferrandi in Paris.
After graduating, Lee continued her training, first at William Ledeuil's Ze Kitchen Galerie and then at Le Meurice, where she worked under industry icons Alain Ducasse and Cedric Grolet.
At Le Meurice, the workload was intense. "I worked 18 hours a day," Lee remembers. There she developed not only as a pastry chef, but as a manager, running a team of 20 people. "It was a huge challenge."
Lee sources grains, dairy, fruit and more from local New York State producers.
But if there's one thing Lee loves almost as much as pastry, it's a challenge. In 2016, she took on the role of executive pastry chef at Jungsik, the restaurant credited with pioneering New Korean cuisine in New York.
"Jungsik is a Korean fine-dining restaurant incorporating European techniques, located in the most diverse city in the world," she explains. "I'd come up with lots of ideas on how to use Korean ingredients in pastry while in France and I thought this would be a great way to test these ideas and push myself."
At Jungsik, she worked closely with executive chef Hoyoung Kim. "The whole experience has to make sense for the diner," she says. "We made the menu together, sharing our opinions, because at the end of the day, we're all part of one team."
Going solo
By 2022, Lee was ready for a fresh challenge. This time, she chose to open her own space, Lysée, a "gallery of confections," where she combines her love of pastry and art.
"In childhood photos, I'm always painting or making something," she says. "My parents are art-lovers and always brought me to galleries. I wanted to make something that looks like a gallery so people can appreciate the desserts and pastries like they would a work of art."
Upstairs at Lysée, Lee's creations are presented like sculptures in an art museum, and guests on the go can order pastries to take away. Downstairs is a more traditional café space, where diners can enjoy the full Lysée menu, spanning cakes, desserts, pastries, cookies, ice cream and drinks.
It's biographical, with Lee's multicultural influences clearly legible in dishes like the corn brioche and the signature milk drink (whole milk infused with toasted brown rice, sea salt and vanilla bean).
The Lysée cake, Lee's signature dish, is made with brown rice mousse, caramel, pecan sablé and praline and is shaped like a giwa tile, a prominent feature in traditional Korean architecture (Lysée's logo is also inspired by giwa). "That's why it's our signature. It perfectly encapsulates our identity, which spans Korea, France and New York."
Downstairs at Lysée is a more typical cafe space, while upstairs is designed like an art gallery.
Her trompe l'oeil experimentations, first explored at Jungsik where she created the Baby Banana, a hyper realistic dessert made of banana cake, chocolate ganache and banana cremeux, served with coffee ice cream, continue at Lysée. The Corn Dessert, made with a silky corn mousse and cremeux and sablé cookie, looks like a corn kernel as depicted in a Pop Art painting; the Corn Popsicle, a hotly anticipated summer special made with corn ice cream and corn sablé, has a similarly charming look.
The journey continues
In 2026, Lee launched a 10-course dessert-only tasting menu at Lysée, an idea developed during her time at Jungsik, when she realised the typical menu structure didn't allow her to fully express her creativity. "I wanted to show that dessert can be the main component of a menu."
Named The Journey and available only on Thursday evenings, the menu highlights the use of local produce, much of which is sourced from nearby farms. "The farm-to-table approach is normally associated with savoury dishes, but here, we're doing it to communicate in our language, which is desserts."
As the name suggests, the menu transports guests to rural New York by highlighting the provenance of its ingredients, but it can also be read as a journey into Lee's past, the culmination of all her influences.
Lee also frequently invites other pastry chefs to collaborate on a tasting menu, offering them the same level of creative freedom she enjoys. "Sometimes, our collaborators can't express themselves fully in their day-to-day since they work in a typical restaurant. When they come to Lysée, they can really be themselves."
Lee at North America's 50 Best Restaurants 2026, accepting North America's Best Pastry Chef Award 2026, sponsored by Valrhona.
The experience is every bit as fulfilling for Lee, with visiting chefs bringing new ingredients and approaches. "Recently, we collaborated with Patrice [Demers] from Sabayon in Montreal, who used lots of Quebecois ingredients. A lot of these were new for us as a team and our diners too, so we all got to appreciate some new ingredients and flavours."
She may be no stranger to hard work, but Lee admits that opening Lysée required an exceptional amount of effort. "Before opening day, I really gave 200 per cent of myself. Some days, I worked 20 hours a day, and one night, I just didn't sleep. Matthieu [Lobry, Lee's husband and fellow pastry chef who works with her at Lysée] and I would work in the kitchen until 3am, then be back there again at 5am."
Four years later, all that work is paying off. "I started my career in 2006, so this marks 20 years in the industry. To be named the winner of the North America's Best Pastry Chef Award this year was so meaningful.
"I was so emotional. My career has been intense and I have faced challenges, but I think the important thing is that I made it through. Winning that award felt a recognition for all that effort and it gave me so much energy to continue for another 20 years."
Learn more about the other individual award winners from North America's 50 Best Restaurants 2026.
