With the new pop-up TBD Gimbap, chef Jihan Lee is testing the market for gimbap in New York City | Jill Rittymanee/TBD Gimbap On a personal level, gimbap came first for chef Jihan Lee, with his mom’s gimbap setting the standard. On a professional level, though, gimbap took a backseat to another seaweed-wrapped rice roll: sushi. After training at New York City’s two-Michelin-starred temple of sushi Masa, Lee and his business partners opened the Japanese hand roll bar Nami Nori in 2019. Even though they’d floated the idea of gimbap, also often romanized as kimbap, since day one, it didn’t feel like the right time. The idea remained in the back of their heads. “As Nami Nori grows, eventually we’ll have a team that’s operating it,” Lee recalls thinking. “Then, we can really think about the concept of gimbap, because it’s still something very new to the [rest of the] world.” He wanted to make sure they could do it right, with restaurant business expertise behind them and the trust of diners. In mid-March — with Nami Nori now established enough to have expanded into Florida, New Jersey, and Virginia — Lee unveiled TBD Gimbap in Manhattan’s West Village, where he serves only gimbap. “No soy sauce required,” reads a sign in the space. With more typical fillings like beef bulgogi and spicy carrots, but also a forthcoming slate of specials that draw on his Japanese training, Lee hopes to push the concept — and test the waters — of what constitutes…
