Watermelon Salad

Every summer has a taste.

For me, it has always been watermelon.

When I was growing up in Korea, summer meant one thing.

My friends and I would pack food, hike into the mountains, and spend the day playing in the cold streams.

Someone always carried a watermelon. It was heavy, but nobody complained.

We would leave it in the icy water while we swam and laughed for hours. When we finally cut it open, the watermelon was perfectly chilled.

Maybe it wasn’t actually sweeter... or maybe it just tasted better because of the people, the place, and the memories.

Perhaps that’s why watermelon still reminds me of summer more than any other ingredient.

About fifteen years ago, while grocery shopping, I picked up a cooking magazine from a newsstand. As I flipped through the pages, one recipe caught my attention—a watermelon salad.

Instead of copying it, I decided to make it my own.

One thing has always guided the way I cook.

I rarely rely on a single source of sweetness or salt. When I want sweetness, I prefer layering two or three different kinds of sweetness. The same goes for seasoning. Every ingredient has its own personality, and together they create a flavor with far more depth than any single ingredient could achieve alone.

That’s how I build every great dish.

For me, this isn’t just a summer salad. It’s a childhood memory, a recipe discovered by chance, and fifteen years of refining a simple idea into something uniquely our own.

— Chef Andrew Joo