Local heirloom tomato salad with mozzarella and sesame sherry vinaigrette. Hanger beef bistro steak with mashed butternut squash and scallion butter. Grilled shrimp in a sweet Thai barbecue sauce with local baby potatoes. Is your mouth watering yet? Good. That means Sunny Chung is doing his job.
Chung, 42, is the chef and co-owner of Sunny’s Table, a cozy Asian-American-fusion bistro on Depot Street. The restaurant, which celebrated its 1st birthday in August, prides itself on using fresh, seasonal ingredients from nearby farms. And fresh it is: Chung takes great pride in the fact that his kitchen has no freezer or microwave.
We should note that we Insiders, the Food Snob included, have long been fans of the restaurant’s fare. One night, over an order of sesame mashed potato spring rolls, we got to wondering about Chung – who was he? Where did he come from? What does he like to eat? We wanted to know more about this mysterious man behind the table.
As it turns out, Chung and his table don’t operate the business alone – a detail we discovered when we called him to set up an interview. We spoke with Kim Lully, Chung’s wife and right-hand woman.
When we arrived, Lully was busy in the office, taking phone calls from vendors, placing orders and balancing the books. Lully, Chung explained, keeps the place running.
Before Sunny’s Table, the duo worked at the Korean Place in Manchester, a small
family-owned restaurant run by Chung’s parents, who are from Korea. His mother, Mama Chung, did pretty much all of the cooking, and Chung said she taught him everything he knows.
“Mom is threatening to come here now,” Chung joked. “She’s a little bored in retirement and we just love to cook together.”
After his parents retired the restaurant, Chung and Lully decided it was time to try their own venture. They wanted a change of pace from the hustle-and-bustle atmosphere of Manchester and envisioned a farm-to-table model that utilized goods from the many farms in and around Concord. That model, the pair said, requires flexibility and creativity, especially when local products aren’t readily available.
“We leave it up to the farmers and try to use what’s in season,” Chung said. “It can be a challenge in the winter, but you utilize whatever you can and focus on seasonal, organic and fresh.”
Chung’s favorite food to cook is Indian, but Japanese and Korean are his specialties. Lully and Chung confessed that since Sunny’s opened, their kitchen shelves have been a little sparse.
“We spend more time here than we do at home,” said Lully, who also grew up in the restaurant business. That’s why they tried to give the restaurant a welcoming feel “an extension of our living room.”
The pair make a good team. They joke and playfully rag on each other, but it’s clear they appreciate what the other brings to the, uh, table.
“Kim is my motivation,” Chung said when asked about the stress of his demanding job.
Looking ahead, the pair’s goal is to continue developing the business while having fun and serving good food, Lully said.
For people who haven’t visited the restaurant, Chung and Lully would like to extend a personal invitation.
“I think some people have a perception that it’s a high-end, upscale kind of place. We try to keep a relaxed, bistro-type atmosphere,” Chung said. “Our food is comforting and the prices are reasonable. Don’t be afraid to come check us out.”