Two-time James Beard nominee, Chef Luke Sung, 52, who has been forced to shutter his San Francisco restaurant, has given his first interview since a falling out with micro influencer Karla Marcotte.
Marcotte posted a video on TikTok on July 23, recounting her experience at wine bar, Kis Cafe, after attending for a preplanned collaboration.
Sung, however, was not aware of the arrangement and Marcotte claimed she overheard him questioning his front-of-house colleague about her before belittling her at her table.
Upset with the treatment, she threatened Sung with “consequences” and left without eating.
The chef slammed Karla Marcotte for not introducing herself to him, saying it was unprofessional
Image credits: itskarlabb
Speaking to the San Francisco Standard on August 9, Sung gave his version of events, saying that Marcotte arrived at the venue at 5pm on a Tuesday while the restaurant was empty.
He claimed that his partner, Eric Lin, had not apprised him of the arrangement beforehand, and thus he was unaware of Marcotte’s existence until he saw her on the day.
“I thought she’d say, ‘Mr. Sung, I read about you, and I am so happy to be doing this with you.’ But she showed up and sat down and didn’t say hi,” he said, before complaining:
Image credits: Isa Sung
“My high expectation for professionalism has failed me again and again — it just brings disappointment.”
He was put off by the influencer’s TikTok video of “overcooked New York steak”
Curious about who would be flying his restaurant’s flag, Sung viewed Marcotte’s TikTok. “I wanted to see what she did,” he explained.
“Right away I saw creamy spaghetti in a pan with sliced, overcooked New York steak on top that she had made.”
Image credits: Google Maps
This sighting did not make a good impression on the chef, who trained under the likes of industry icons like Roland Passot and Sylvain Portay.
Luke Sung felt she did not do her research on him or the venue’s mission, and was likely to misrepresent him
“That night, I was running a special with this beautiful coho salmon,” he said.
“I didn’t want to be misrepresented by someone who doesn’t understand the difference between Atlantic salmon and king salmon.”
Following his observations, he went over to Marcotte and said to her:
“Hi. Somewhere along the line, I think there may have been a mistake. I’m not sure if we have the same audience.
“I think I asked her, ‘Have you looked up Kis Cafe? Do you know my background? Do you know what we’re trying to do?’”
He explained that his line of questioning was driven by the knowledge that came with having a daughter who was an influencer.
The influencer threatened the restaurateur before leaving, without eating
Image credits: k.arlabb
According to Sung, Marcotte responded, “I know you’re a wine bar, and you don’t have a website.”
“Well, it’s your work, and you have to do your research,” he scolded Marcotte.
“I know how hard my daughter works to do her things well. She would never head to a gig unprepared,” he told the Californian outlet.
“I think there was a lot of ‘do you know,’ and she was intimidated — which I can understand,” he admitted.
“Then Karla said she felt disrespected by me looking at her TikTok in front of her.”
“She said to her husband, who had just arrived, ‘We’re not going to eat here.’ And she left. But before she left, she said, ‘The restaurant world is really small. There will be consequences.’”
Sung’s daughter had previously spoken about her father not “regulating his emotions and words”
The Standard’s interviewer, Sara Deseran, then asked about Sung’s daughter Isa, who is an influencer boasting–as he told Marcotte in the exchange at his restaurant–more than 600,000 followers and 31 million likes.
Deseran pointed to a statement by Isa claiming that “as a daughter of immigrant parents,” she had spent her life teaching her father to moderate “his emotions and words.”
Image credits: Isa Sung
Based on this, Deseran wanted to know if Sung’s demeanor toward Marcotte “was out of character” for him.
“Well, my daughter is my daughter, right?” he shot back. “I didn’t feel like I was disrespecting [Marcotte].”
“When she said that she felt disrespected, I said, ‘I feel disrespected that you don’t even know who the chef is. [As a collaborator], you’re supposed to be representing me.’”
The Chef’s daughter has since reached out to Marcotte to say she did not condone her father’s behavior
Sung told Deseran that Marcotte’s inflammatory Tiktok missive was brought to his attention by Isa that very evening during a phone call.
He noted that he never imagined that the exchange would spiral out of control and affect his restaurant and family—particularly his daughter, who has been receiving a stream of harassment and has since taken her TikTok account offline.
“She got 20,000 hate comments, and my son, who’s a musician, also got a ton of hate comments. They were traumatized,” he said.
Image credits: KRON 4
Isa broke ranks and sent a communication to Marcotte saying that she was not in favor of her father’s behavior.
“She did the right thing,” Sung said.
Sung’s other restaurant is getting bad reviews from abroad
Kis’s Google rating, by Sung’s admission, has tanked, forcing him to close its doors and fire himself.
On the other hand, as reported by Bored Panda previously, the furore has had the opposite effect on Marcotte’s following. Before the viral post, she had just over 15,000 fans; she now has close to 500,000.
Image credits: KTVU FOX 2 San Francisco
The odium has since metastasized to another business interest of Sung’s; a sushi restaurant called Domo which was doxed by a TikToker and subsequently attracted spurious reviews from countries like Norway, Malaysia, and England.
The chef says his family will be attending therapy together as they need to heal
When asked about what he learned from the experience, he said, “Why would a young chef go and learn how to cook today, if some inexperienced anybody can come in and close your restaurant?
“They don’t even need to hear what you have to say.”
Image credits: KTVU FOX 2 San Francisco
He added that he and his family will be attending therapy sessions to deal with the blowout.
“Everything is broken into pieces,” he lamented. “I have to try to pick it up and glue it back together. I have to just let it heal.”
The tide of public opinion appears to be turning in the favor of the Chef Luke Sung
