Alumnus, founder of Maru Supper Club becomes culinary entrepreneur

Gaining half a million TikTok followers is no easy feat, but USC alumnus and culinary entrepreneur Hwoo Lee is no stranger to rapid social media success. Despite TikTok’s abundance of food accounts, Lee’s swift editing style and inimitable humor has launched him into certified TikTok and Instagram stardom. 

“I’m a food content creator, but really I am in a sense an entrepreneur trying to work on many things at once,” Lee said. “ I don’t know if that characterizes entrepreneurs, but I feel as though I am because I am constantly working on things I want.”

Even before his newfound TikTok fame, Lee’s culinary growth strongly intertwined with his time at USC. 

Lee began learning how to cook in summer 2017 when he lived alone in a house near campus. Starting with Gordon Ramsey’s eggs Benedict dish, he continued to practice several different dishes on his own, eventually refining his palette and improving his flavors. 

“I was also more thoughtful about what I was eating,” Lee said. “[I was beginning to identify] when you’re eating pasta … that taste, that spice, is from the chili flakes you put in or something.” 

Lee was becoming more aware of the process and components of cooking.

Midway through his junior year, Lee learned about Paladar, an underground supper club at USC that began in 2009 and hosted people in an apartment like a restaurant. Paladar — which is a Cuban term for a restaurant run out of a private home. Paladar even has its own documentary. 

This was where everything changed for the young chef. 

“I watched that documentary and I was like, ‘Let me take a stab at this. Why not? I mean, I want to have people over at my place, just have an excuse for friends to come over,’” Lee said. “So, as I was thinking more about how I can have people over, every single time I invited someone I would just text people, make a group chat. And I’d make some dishes for a family style meal.” 

Inspired by this past history of supper club in the USC community, Lee continued hosting during the school year, always trying to create new dishes. 

“Maru started out of my college apartment because I kind of wanted to just brand something out of what I was doing,” Lee said. “I didn’t think of it as anything special … I kind of made it Instagram official, so I would sell spots to my dinner table on Instagram around late 2018.

[The name Maru] directly translates to ‘wooden floors’ in Korean … but it actually alludes to the living room area where the family gathers for games, meals, movies, etc. It’s the gathering space for people in a home.”  

Following graduation, Lee went to stage, an unpaid internship position for chefs where he was volunteering time at Los Angeles Michelin restaurant Kato to learn about the restaurant industry. After staging, Lee did some traveling for the summer, and when he returned to L.A., a co-chef and then-current USC student asked if Lee wanted to host dinners at his fraternity house instead. Lee agreed, and Maru officially began. 

After successfully hosting several dinner events in the fall of 2019, Lee began working as an assistant for a wedding planner while developing Maru within the fraternity house. With research and help from several friends and culinary peers, Lee and his team set up the “fine dining Maru’’ experience.

Hwoo emphasized how important it was to have all the guests be comfortable and build a dynamic social dynamic between each course of the Maru dinner. Hosts would even come up with questions to ask at the dinner table. One of the most popular questions was to tell your first kiss story as such questions broke down barriers.

Maru’s original hostess and fellow USC alumna, Mara Lorin, said first kiss stories were her favorite question to ask. “Everyone would get giddy and it would just open up a wave of awkward teenage emotions,” Lorin said. 

Until USC campus closed due to the coronavirus, Lee led a team of mostly USC undergraduates to operate Maru — six people working in the kitchen, eight hosts and even photographers. 

Ryan Hosey, an alumnus and co-chef at Maru had high praise for Lee. 

“He’s one of the most driven and conceptually talented people that I’ve ever met, especially at our age, being able to have a vision of something that could seem so outlandish. He not only comes up with where he wants to be, he comes up with the individual steps of how he wants to get there. And that’s a super invaluable, impressive trait to have.”

Unfortunately, like other culinary businesses, Maru came to a halt during the pandemic. 

Lee had to stop hosting his dinners and shifted to working full time for his event planning boss, Kevin. Lee started doing cooking classes on the side for charity during the coronavirus in an attempt to give back and continue doing something food related. It wasn’t until mid-December of 2020 that Lee posted a TikTok video cooking a Wagyu steak with pomme purée and Bordelaise sauce for himself that went viral and changed everything.

After his first viral video, with the support of friends and family, Lee focused more on creating online food content. 

“When I first started content creation, I experienced a lot of pressure. I still experience the pressure, but it’s far less than what I was experiencing a couple months ago. ” Lee said. “Some people are very good for it, and some people would crumble under the social pressure and all the judgment. I very much enjoy it. If — back in December — if I could tell myself ‘Should I post this video or not?,’ I would have still said yes. I’ve made so many connections.” 

Social media has also allowed Lee to continue cooking and exploring his own culinary style more in depth. 

“I’ve just started doing something I love. And, really, the biggest thing is that, during COVID, I kind of lost hope for doing my dinners again, and trying to be a cook again,” Lee said. “But doing social media now … I have hope again, for what I want to do … People are interested in my story.”

Lee’s TikTok bio reads “i like to go fast” and his videos are a testament to this statement, showcasing mouth-watering dishes cooked in a speedy clip compilation style. 

There’s an intimate style to these videos as well, as most are created right in Lee’s apartment. Lee’s subtle humor often sneaks into amusing captions and comments among his videos, delighting audiences. 

In addition to generating high-quality content, Lee engages with his viewers by hosting food debates on his Instagram. Hwoo takes a poll and poses fun questions ranging from whether people pour milk before cereal or cereal before milk or if a hot dog is considered a sandwich. People respond to Lee’s Instagram story and he then compiles the data as well as prepares a short speech on his take on the topic. 

Lee also has a section on his TikTok called “People as Food.” He uses it to create a dish that embodies someone he respects. The first edition of this segment featured legendary electronic music producer and singer ZHU, who Lee thought of as squid ink bao buns with calamari.

With a constantly-growing social media presence and a refined talent for culinary arts, it’s no secret that the future is bright for chef Hwoo Lee. 

“I look forward to reopening my supper club in L.A. To people in L.A. or people that come to visit L.A., I’d love to have them and try to continue what I do,” Lee said.“If anything, I’m incredibly grateful for this reinvigorated hope to do what I love again.