Kim Go-eun Spent All Day Drinking With Chef Sung Anh

When Kim Go-eun walked into Michelin-starred chef Sung Anh's kitchen earlier this week, she wasn't there just to cook. The beloved actress, fresh off her Baeksang Award-winning performance in Exhuma and counting down the days to her TVING comeback in Yumi's Cells Season 3, appeared on Chef Anh's YouTube channel to reunite with a man she once spent an entire day drinking whiskey with — and the internet could not get enough of it.

The episode, titled "Coming to Soothe the Hunger Cells" — a clever nod to Kim Go-eun's hit drama franchise in which emotions are personified as tiny cells — immediately captured fans' attention when it dropped on the Chef Sung Anh channel. What followed was a warmly candid hour of cooking, storytelling, and the kind of easy friendship that only forms when two very busy people somehow find time to drink whiskey together for an entire day.

How a Whiskey Commercial Sparked an Unlikely Friendship

It all started in 2025, when both Kim Go-eun and An Sung-jae were selected as brand muses for Balvenie, the premium Scottish single malt whisky label. As part of the campaign — billed as "The Ultimate Pairing" — the two were tasked with embodying the artisanal spirit of the brand: a world-class chef and a celebrated actress, united by craftsmanship and a shared love of whiskey.

The commercial shoot, as both recalled on the YouTube episode, was anything but quick. "We spent all day drinking," Kim Go-eun said with a laugh, confirming what many fans had already suspected from the chemistry evident in the Balvenie campaign content. An Sung-jae added that he was "extremely nervous" going into the shoot — not because of the cameras, but because of the magnitude of his co-star. "She's an enormous star," he admitted. "I'd never worked with someone in the entertainment world like that before."

What he didn't expect was how effortlessly Kim Go-eun would put him at ease. "She was so warm and considerate," he said, expressing genuine gratitude for the way she handled his nerves. The experience, anchored by good whiskey and genuine mutual respect, laid the foundation for a friendship that clearly hasn't lost any warmth since.

Back in the Kitchen — This Time Without the Whiskey

On the YouTube episode, the two moved from the sleek world of whisky campaigns to something far more grounded: home cooking. Kim Go-eun prepared doenjang-jjigae (Korean soybean paste stew) and bulgogi for the Michelin-starred chef — a choice that, given her audience, required considerable nerve.

"My anxiety cells were going wild," she joked, using the language of her drama to describe her nerves about cooking in front of someone whose culinary standards are quite literally Michelin-grade. An Sung-jae's reputation for precision is well-documented: MOSU Seoul, his flagship restaurant in Hannam-dong, held three Michelin stars for several consecutive years before being awarded two stars in the 2026 guide. The bar, in other words, was high.

But true to the dynamic the two established during their whiskey shoot, Kim Go-eun's cooking landed well. An Sung-jae praised her stew as "very cleanly and well-made" — high praise from a chef who trained at Thomas Keller's French Laundry and built one of Asia's most respected fine dining establishments. Kim Go-eun, for her part, was characteristically modest. "I cook often when I have free time," she said, "but I'm usually working. Cooking skills deteriorate when you don't practice."

The episode also offered fans some personal details they found endearing. Kim Go-eun shared that her go-to late-night comfort food is grilled pork belly and soju — as relatable a combination as any in Korean food culture, and perhaps a reminder that behind the acclaimed actress is someone who keeps her pleasures simple.

Who Is Chef Sung Anh?

For international fans less familiar with the name, An Sung-jae — known professionally as Chef Sung Anh — is arguably the most celebrated Korean chef working today. Born in Korea in 1982, he moved to the United States at age 13, served in the U.S. Army, and later trained at Le Cordon Bleu in California. A chance encounter led him to Urasawa in Beverly Hills and then to The French Laundry in Napa Valley, Thomas Keller's legendary three-Michelin-star restaurant, where he worked as a section chef.

He brought that training back to Seoul. MOSU Seoul, opened in 2017, spent years at the top of Korea's fine dining landscape — earning three Michelin stars and appearing regularly on the World's 50 Best Restaurants extended list. His national fame then exploded in 2024 when he joined Paik Jong-won as a judge on Netflix's Culinary Class Wars, a competition show that became one of the platform's most-watched Korean originals and made Chef Anh a household name almost overnight.

His YouTube channel, launched in 2025 and now boasting 1.25 million subscribers, reflects an appetite for seeing the person behind the Michelin stars in a more accessible light. The episode with Kim Go-eun is precisely that kind of content: two genuinely accomplished people, at ease with each other, cooking and laughing their way through an afternoon.

Kim Go-eun's Big 2026

The YouTube appearance comes at a particularly active moment in Kim Go-eun's career. Having won the Baeksang Arts Award for Best Actress for the 2024 horror film Exhuma — a critically praised genre breakout that surprised audiences with its scope and intensity — she is currently building toward the April 13, 2026 premiere of Yumi's Cells Season 3 on TVING.

The timing of the YouTube visit was deliberate and clever. The episode title — "Coming to Soothe the Hunger Cells" — directly invokes the "cells" concept from her drama, in which different emotions, including hunger, anxiety, and love, are personified as microscopic residents inside the protagonist's mind. Kim Go-eun's reference to her "anxiety cells" cooking for Chef Anh managed to be both promotional and genuinely charming — a reminder of why she has remained one of the industry's most watchable performers across fifteen years and multiple genres.

Fans who have followed Yumi's Cells since its first season in 2021 have watched Kim Go-eun grow considerably as a performer. Season 3 is expected to return to the warmth and character-driven storytelling that defined the original run, and early enthusiasm from the fanbase suggests strong anticipation heading into spring.

A Friendship Worth Watching

What ultimately made the episode resonate with viewers was less about the food and more about the ease of the relationship on screen. An Sung-jae, who can come across as intensely focused in professional settings — an occupational hazard of running a Michelin-grade kitchen — was visibly relaxed and warm with Kim Go-eun. She, in turn, showed a playful, self-deprecating quality that has always been part of her appeal.

Their shared origin story — a day spent drinking single malt Scotch during a campaign shoot — is exactly the kind of unexpected, slightly glamorous, and very human "how we met" narrative that fans love. It's a reminder that behind the carefully constructed worlds of fine dining and award-winning drama, real friendships still form over the same things they always have: good drinks, shared nerves, and someone who turns out to be warmer than you expected.

With Kim Go-eun returning to screens next month and Chef Sung Anh continuing to build his YouTube audience, this particular friendship seems likely to generate more content — and judging by the response to this episode, fans are very much here for it.