Accidently on Purpose: A Memoir ~ By Kristen Kish
Chef Kristen Kish describes growing into a confident adult while rising to TV fame
(Little, Brown and Company, New York, 2025, ISBN #978-0-3165-8093-9)
Review by Joanne Rhim Lee (Summer 2025)
If you’re even a casual fan of the reality cooking competition show Top Chef, you are surely familiar with Kristen Kish, winner of Season 10 and current host of the show, who carries herself with great confidence and has an amazing sense of style, in addition to her culinary wizardry. However, if this is the only context in which you know her, her new memoir Accidentally on Purpose will show that you can’t judge a book by its cover, or a dish only by how it looks on the plate.
At only 40 years old, Kish might seem a bit young to be writing a memoir, but she has lived quite an interesting life thus far. She begins with her origin story – not her actual birth in South Korea, but her arrival in the U.S. as an adoptee at only four months old. Her parents and older brother Jonathan met her on the tarmac at the airport in Detroit, and instantly showered her with love.
The scenes she describes of her childhood growing up in Michigan seem like something from a Norman Rockwell painting, as the four of them ate dinner together every night, watched their beloved sitcoms on TV, and played lots of sports. Her first year of college at a school about an hour away did not go so well, so she decided to try her hand at culinary school in Chicago. She had always enjoyed cooking, and her parents continued to offer their unconditional love and support.
After graduating from Le Cordon Bleu culinary school, she landed the position of executive sous chef at the InterContinental Hotel in downtown Chicago, despite having limited experience. She describes this time as an incredibly stressful period of her life, and she began to use cocaine and alcohol to cope.
Kish writes with refreshing honesty, like a trusted friend telling you the unvarnished truth, not as someone who is trying to dress up her story and aim for literary awards. Though she might look like someone who has it all together and has lived a fairy tale life, she has made plenty of mistakes and is open about sharing the lessons that she has learned.
The situation in Chicago was clearly toxic for her, so Kish decided to move to Boston, despite not having a job lined up in advance. Through a series of fortunate events, she met famed chef Barbara Lynch and began working at her restaurants Stir and Menton, developing a reputation as an up-an-coming chef.
Soon after her Boston career began, she was tapped to be a contestant on Top Chef, where she won several challenges that showcased her elite and creative cooking skills; Kish also became a fan favorite because of her humility and authenticity. In 2013, she was crowned Top Chef, which catapulted her into the public eye and unlocked a wave of new career opportunities, including opening up her own restaurant in Austin, Texas.
Kish’s culinary journey is certainly unique and inspiring, but what makes Accidentally on Purpose such a compelling memoir is her non-cooking journey. From her childhood until well into adulthood, she struggled with severe social anxiety. While her high school friends loved to dress up and give each other makeovers, she just wanted to wear baggy jeans and t-shirts. She describes observing peers succeeding in school, while she was never successful in traditional academic settings. These differences made her feel isolated from other kids, which contributed to her insecurity and anxiety.
Shortly after winning Top Chef, Kish finally gathered the courage to come out as a lesbian. Though she feared how her family, friends, co-workers and fans would respond, she writes that she was overwhelmed with the love and support she received. As her career took off, Kish continued to receive messages of support from members of the queer community, as well as from many Asian Americans, especially fellow Korean adoptees.
Kish admits that she never really sought these communities out, and perhaps didn’t even think she was a part of them. As a Korean American adoptee who grew up in Michigan, she did not have many Asian American friends. When people asked her to cook dishes from her heritage, she thought about her parents’ casseroles and pot roasts, not kimchi jjigae or soon dubu.
Though Kish had not traveled widely before winning Top Chef, that changed after winning and becoming the host of various shows including 36 Hours, Fast Foodies, and Restaurants at the End of the World. She went to many new places off the beaten path. She also returned to Seoul for the first time since her adoption, and visited Thailand, where she participated in a panel for queer people in an event that was part of Bangkok Pride Week. Of that experience, she writes,
This was one of those things that I never even knew to dream about when I got into the culinary world. That I could represent and learn from others in my community and celebrate queer culture on the other side of the world – that was a kind of gratification I couldn’t have imagined when I picked up my first knife roll decades earlier.
In 2023, the long-time host of Top Chef, Padma Lakshmi, announced that she was stepping down from the role. Normally, such a high-profile role would lead to a nationwide casting call, but because of Kish’s popularity and strong ties to the franchise, she was the obvious choice to replace Lakshmi. In Season 21, Kish officially took over the role, earning rave reviews for her honesty, vulnerability, and unique style, even being nominated for an Emmy Award in her first season as host.
The same adjectives can be used to describe Kish’s Accidentally on Purpose. It’s hard to believe that this confident, polished, and talented person could ever have been socially awkward and uncomfortable in her own skin. Today, Kish is happily married to her life partner, thriving her in her new role at Top Chef, and using her voice and platform to champion causes she believes in. Some might say that her success was all an accident, but for Kish, everything has a purpose.
