Nick Korbee will tell you he's a "part-time dishwasher."
Don’t believe him.
Nick's culinary journey began in Los Angeles, where he attended Le Cordon Bleu while honing his craft as a sous chef at Café Stella — learning the fundamentals in the classroom by day and in a real kitchen by night. That combination of formal training and hands-on hustle set the tone for everything that followed.
His first stop in New York City said everything about the kind of chef he was becoming. Smith & Mills — tucked into a former carriage house in Tribeca, unmarked, low-lit, and beloved — was one of the coziest, most interesting and hippest restaurant-bars in NYC, The Greenwich Hotel a Bauhaus-inspired den of aging materials, century-old wood, and vintage cocktails Tripadvisor where the city's most discerning tastemakers came to disappear. The New York Post famously called its kitchen the smallest in New York City — and Nick ran it. From there, his career took him from New York's tiniest cocktail bar to redesigning the offerings for a modern Caribbean neighborhood restaurant, each chapter sharpening his instinct for creativity and resourcefulness.
In 2014, Nick co-founded Egg Shop, opening the first location in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City. Egg Shop The premise was deceptively simple: serve the best egg sandwiches and Bloody Marys all day. Publishers Weekly What followed was anything but. Nick developed an ever-evolving seasonal menu of organic, locally sourced dishes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, eventually expanding to a second location in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in 2017. Egg Shop
The restaurant quickly caught the attention of the food world. Nick appeared in TV features on the Food Network, the Today Show, Dr. Oz, and more, givesmart and Food Network highlighted his signature take on the bacon, egg, and cheese — a buttermilk biscuit stacked with crispy bacon, melty cheese, a runny fried egg, tomato jam, guacamole, and pickled jalapeños. Food Network The American Egg Board tapped him as a national spokesperson, citing him as a chef known for his innovative, egg-centric approach and his ability to help operators think differently about their menus. Foodindustryexecutive
In 2017, Nick released Egg Shop: The Cookbook.
A full-color collection of more than 100 recipes Amazon that critics embraced not just as a recipe book but as a whole culinary philosophy.
T Magazine called it a "complete, and frequently very funny, guide to understanding the egg as an ingredient," Amazon while Library Journal compared its precision to Kenji López-Alt's The Food Lab and called it highly recommended for anyone looking to reinvigorate breakfast and brunch. Thirstymag noted that Korbee had been successful in reshaping the way people enjoy both dishes and drinks.
Eventually, the pull of roots proved stronger than New York.
Nick and his wife Amanda — a Newton, Kansas native — relocated to Wichita to be closer to family, with a vision for a "food from here" concept they'd been dreaming about for years. Goodlifeguy As Nick put it: "After visiting for holidays, birthdays, and milestones for the last 15 years, it was the right time to come back to the Midwest and plant roots here." Goodlifeguy
The result is First Mile Kitchen.
Winner of the Kansas Restaurant & Hospitality Association's Best New Concept award, along with accolades for best cocktail and best brunch bite, OpenTable First Mile is Nick's love letter to Kansas — an open-concept kitchen anchored by a wood-burning fire hearth, a hand-crafted ash bar built by local carpenters using Kansas materials, a sommelier-curated wine list, craft cocktails, and a vinyl record collection OpenTable that Nick has been known to DJ himself during dinner service. The popular monthly food and wine dinners sell out consistently.
From the kitchens of Los Angeles to a famously tiny carriage house in Tribeca to a Brooklyn brunch empire to the heart of the Kansas plains, Nick Korbee has always cooked like someone who knows exactly what matters — and makes it look like a whole lot of fun.