08/24/2026
Nino on catering to Koreans and non-Koreans at an American hotel in Seoul, South Korea,🇰🇷 “The Chosun Hotel was the first American hotel in South Korea. The restaurants were always packed, as we brought in a variety of Australian🇦🇺 and Philippine🇵🇭 entertainers. But we still had some cultural issues to resolve. A peculiar problem concerned a traditional Korean food, kimchee, cabbage marinated in garlic, which Koreans eat with everything. The result was that everyone stank from the garlic, and we were receiving many complaints from non-Korean customers. We stopped serving kimchee to the staff. The employees grumbled, but the hotel smelled better.
In the rooftop supper club we regularly featured all-girl reviews. It was the Las Vegas of Seoul. The girls, all from Australia, were tall and great looking. No gambling. At the American military base I befriended and consequently hired Michael Pope to be the master of ceremonies for each show and any other event held at the hotel. He did this in exchange for meals. Michael was military and a newscaster on American television in Seoul. He had a charismatic baritone voice, perfect for the emcee of our shows.🎙️
Finally the foreign community had food it was familiar with, and it was music to their stomachs.” -From Nino Pernetti’s Caffe Abbracci Cookbook,📕 His Life Story and Travels around the World.🌎
