The Toronto trio behind the site specific cooking style is infusing the city with culinary creativity
Outside of the coffee shop Abraço in NYC’s East Village, I met up with the chefs behind See You Soon – the travelling culinary experience. I started with the classic “How would you describe your cuisine,” and in true artistic style, there was no one answer. Kevin Le is Vietnamese, Michael Ovejas is Filipino and Keith Siu is Chinese. The trio says their food has been described as a personal take on their cultural backgrounds, but it’s also a creative blend of experience, inspiration and interest.
The guys are in their late-20s and have a laid-back energy and gentle aura that invites you in. Their goofy, unserious demeanour around each other highlights the brother-like bond they have. Michael has a full sleeve and accessorizes with chunky silver jewelry. Keith has long hair he sometimes wears in braids and a patchwork of colourful tattoos all over his arms. Kevin rocks a thin pinky ring and a pin on his Yankees hat from the Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara. Unanimously, they dress with a street-style aesthetic wearing graphic tees, beanies, bandanas and ball caps with baggy pants and sneakers.
With over 15 years of culinary experience combined and a plethora of knowledge of design and fashion, the group has intertwined their passions into a niche cooking style—limited and exclusive pop-ups or residencies at restaurants all over the world. I first encountered See You Soon in our shared hometown, Toronto, Canada. In 2024, I found them cooking again, this time at Gem House in the Lower East Side of New York City.
Keith and Michael met at culinary school in Toronto, but their friendship blossomed when they both worked as Sous-Chefs at Mimi Chinese in the city. Keith was already friends with Kevin, Michael and Kevin knew of each other but Keith made the formal introduction. It was Keith’s idea to do a pop-up – to have some fun and throw something new into the city. He brought in Michael first and eventually Kevin started to have a hand in the menu. They took a risk on themselves and began building a business while still working full-time kitchen jobs (it took some convincing to get Kevin to leave his Executive Chef position). “We were like, you know what, let’s try it. If we fuck up, if we fail, we can always go back,” says Keith.
The name, “See You Soon,” was an idea thanks to Keith’s partner. “Initially, our intention for the brand was to do pop-ups, so we were trying to think of a name that would relate to having recurring guests and building a community,” says Michael. They hosted their first official event in October 2022, just for family and friends. The success of this led the guys to host their first public event in January 2023 at Soho House Toronto.
But it wasn’t until their third event in Toronto at 915 DuPont that they realized they had built a fan base outside of their friends and family. What started as an intimate event for the restaurant owners opened to the public, selling out 60 tickets in just two days. “We had a tasting menu, and I think that was the event that kind of blew us up,” says Keith.
From there, the trio was able to take their cooking to Vancouver. “Kevin mentioned that one of his co-workers knew of a farm that wanted to host a dinner, the Endswell Farm on Bowen Island,” says Michael. They spent three weeks there, a humbling, rewarding and encouraging experience. “I think even at that point we weren’t expecting to leave the country,” says Kevin. “We were hopeful of it,” says Keith.
The team spent a month sending cold messages in the hopes of bringing their cooking overseas. “We started a spreadsheet with every place in the world that we wanted to cook at. We found all their emails or contact info and then we just spammed everyone,” says Kevin. They would joke, or manifest, that they were going to do a world tour. “Eventually we got a reply back from Orange Wine Bar in London and they’re like, ‘Hey, we’re down,’ and we were like, oh okay sick,” says Michael.
The owners of the wine bar were taking a risk—having never met the guys or tried their food—but felt confident enough to let them take over their kitchen. The residency in London lasted two months and shortly after they spent a month cooking at Early June in Paris. It was their hard work in Toronto, hosting pop-ups and building an identity, that helped them take See You Soon abroad. “We were doing an event or two a week for two months straight and we hit every single top restaurant in Toronto that we wanted,” says Keith. Kitchens such as Donna’s, Milou and Lake Inez gave them a strong footing and one that they’re not quick to forget.
The guys are finishing a run at Gem House in NYC which started at the beginning of April and extended a week into May. “Keith and Kevin, because they’ve been in the industry more consistently, they’ve made more connections throughout the years,” says Michael. Kevin kept in touch with Flynn McGarry, the former teen chef and owner of Gem Wine after coming to New York and working for him briefly in 2020.
The menu has been updated since I visited during the opening week, with culinary inspiration taken from places they’ve eaten and ideas they want to explore in and out of their cultures. “As long as we’re excited about something and we want to try it, it’s all game under the See You Soon brand of food,” says Keith. But the brand is also an extension of who they are as people. Keith is also a graphic designer, Kevin has a passion for furniture and design and Michael has a sharp eye for fashion. See You Soon gives them the opportunity to explore these sides of themselves, through and beyond their food.
They’ve started to work with clothing and design brands like Mo Lo Lo and Kotn. “That’s the great thing about See You Soon is that we’re not really strictly inside this bubble of food or restaurants,” says Keith, “We meet people in the creative industry—people in fashion and art—and it gives us the opportunity to kind of express our artistic hobbies.”
The future after Gem House will include more pop-ups and collaborations in Toronto, and possibly a tour in Asia this fall. The site-specific cooking approach has allowed the guys to be cultural ambassadors for the city they’re from. While they’ve been enjoying travelling the world and working out of some of their dream kitchens, they maintain a strong sense of pride in where they come from. Michael remarks, “When we went to Paris everybody’s like, you know, we gotta go to Toronto now.”
