Local chefs expand Willits lunch offerings with Pan-Asian street food 

Crispy rice cakes and pork belly bao buns are coming to the Willits area with the opening of Seoul Kitchen, the latest venture from Executive Chefs Greg Topper and Mike Ziemer of Aspen Elevated Catering. 

Seoul Kitchen’s grand opening is on Monday, April 20, located at 72A Sunset Drive in the Willits Design Center. It will be open for lunch and takeaway from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

Topper and Ziemer found success debuting a menu focused on Asian street food last year at Aspen Ruggerfest out of their food truck.  

“We looked around at some of the other people that were already going to be there and decided to do something different,” Topper said of Ruggerfest. “We came up with the menu — it was super successful; everybody loved it.” 

After sitting with the concept while still working on the catering business, based out of their facility in Willits, the two began to see the potential in opening up a new lunch location using a menu similar to the Ruggerfest event. 

“There’s a dearth of that kind of thing around here,” Ziemer said. “We hear from people that it’s a challenge to find some place for a quick lunch … and so with those two parts of the equation coming together, we said ‘Hey, we’ve got this menu already ready from Ruggerfest and we have a location close enough to Willits to make it convenient.’ It’s fun … something different for us to do.” 

Seoul Kitchen offers outdoor dining and takeaway, designed to be a convenient spot for lunch breaks for the surrounding workforce, as well as a stop for cyclists and others traveling up and down the valley. 

“We’ve pushed hard and done some investment to make it happen, and I created this cool little dining room courtyard outside.” Topper said.  “We’re hoping since we’re so close to Glacier and Rio Grande (trails), that we can kind of get into the fabric of everybody doing bike riding and stopping by.”

With Japanese, Korean, Thai and Chinese influences, the menu covers a wide array of popular street eats. 

“We’re bringing back some of our favorites,” Topper said. “The bao buns, the brisket sandwich and the fish and shrimp Thai style curry are all big hits.”