H Mart's first cookbook is out — and it's organized like the store's aisles

H Mart just published its first cookbook — and it reads like a guided trip through the aisles. Stacey Kwon, the president of the Korean American grocery chain, has released H Mart: The Cookbook: Essential Ingredients, Techniques, and Korean Recipes, a guide built to help shoppers turn store staples into real Korean meals.

"The book is set up like an H Mart, organized by aisles," Kwon told Vogue. "But unless you're Korean and have been shopping at H Mart since you were little, it can be hard to navigate the store blind, culturally, for things like rice, seaweed."

Kwon knows those aisles from the inside. She grew up in the 1980s in her father's small grocery store, Han Ah Reum, in Woodside, Queens — the shop that eventually became the national H Mart chain.

She frames the project as more than a recipe collection. "If there's one thing I hope readers will take away from this book, it's an understanding of Korean food," she said. "Food means a lot to Korean people... It's our love language. So this is more than just a cookbook; it's an expression of love."

The party dish to make first

To mark the release, Kwon shared her favorite recipe with Vogue: braised beef short ribs, or tteok kalbi jjim. "This is my son's favorite food," she said. "It's essentially a Korean beef stew... It's at every party in our family, a total crowd pleaser. It's the equivalent of having prime rib. It's special-occasion food."

For her, the dish comes down to care, not just technique. "It's all about how nicely you cut the carrots, the radish; it's the love and care you put into it," she said. "It's time-consuming, but you can make kalbi jjim in a massive vat. There's never enough."

The recipe serves six and leans on English-cut short ribs, shiitake mushrooms, soy sauce, garlic, mirin, Korean radish, carrots and rice cakes. Around it, the cookbook maps out everything from grilling equipment to Korean herbs, with bright, detailed illustrations throughout.