Migaam is a Korean culinary and tea atelier exploring how tradition can live in the present.

Founder Emma Kim grew up in a Korean family where ancestral rites were part of everyday life — a time to remember those who came before, and to give thanks for their continued care over the family. She remembers waking on those mornings to a house transformed: the scent of steaming rice and incense, brass vessels filling every room, days of preparation behind a single meal. Each tteok was made differently, according to what each ancestor had loved in life. Afterward, the family gathered to share the food, and what remained was wrapped in bojagi and sent home with guests. Emma came to understand that food could hold the memory of a person — and that making, serving, and sharing it was a way of remembering.

Moving to the United States raised a question she couldn't set aside: what does it take to carry this knowledge forward? Some traditions can't survive on efficiency alone — they need time, repetition, and the patience of the hand. Migaam grew out of that question, a place to keep this knowledge in practice and let it live into another generation.

Emma's path to food was not a direct one. She studied classical music at the Peabody Institute, interior design at Pratt Institute, and design across Japan, New York, and Los Angeles — a background that shaped how she sees restraint, proportion, material, and the composition of an experience as a whole. Years later, she returned to Korea to study tradition more deeply, training for years under master artisans in tteok, hangwa, Korean beverages, and tea, earning professional certification in each.

Today, Migaam brings these disciplines together — food, tea, objects, space, and gathering. Rather than reproducing the past, Migaam studies its techniques, ingredients, and meaning closely, exploring how Korean tradition can evolve and live naturally in California today.

A tradition studied deeply, remembered personally, and carried forward in a language of our own.

Emma Kim is based in Los Angeles, California.