Albert Ok, the owner of Ok’s Deli and Oken — his new sit-down concept in Rockridge that softly opened in May — originally went to school for art.

After growing up in Richmond, Ok studied painting and graphic design at UC Irvine, where he worked at mainly sushi restaurants on the side. After graduating in 2008, he was deciding whether to go into art or cooking.

“It’s not really that romanticized of a story, it was more of a financial decision,” Ok said. “It was just easier to find work in the food industry. And I just found art to be slightly more solitary, a lot of just sitting down and being alone, which was probably the least enjoyable part of doing art, so I just transitioned to cooking.”

Ok briefly attended cooking school at CCSF, but left the program early to start working in r

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