Chef LaMara Davidson Is Relaunching Her Career At 50, And She’s Never Been Happier

For LaMara Davidson, becoming a professional chef was a happy accident. As the daughter of an African American serviceman and a Korean émigré mother, LaMara grew up eating a blend of soul food and Korean food that has become her signature cooking style. She calls it “Seoul food.” Some of her earliest memories are sitting on the kitchen floor peeling garlic while watching her mother prepare napa cabbage for kimchi, helping her mother make mandu (Korean dumplings), taking in the sounds and smells of kalbi sizzling on the grill, and learning how to make turnips and mustard greens from her paternal grandmother.

Food has always been a huge part of LaMara’s life, but her path to becoming a chef wasn’t a direct one. She started as an artist manager for Sony and hosted dinner parties to impress potential clients. “I didn’t have a big manager bank account, so I cooked my own food and held meetings at my house,” LaMara said. Her cooking chops got people’s attention, and after selling her food at a San Francisco concert venue (making more money than the band that night) and booking some catering gigs, she quickly shifted gears. She enrolled in The New School’s culinary arts training program and started her own catering business in New York City. Almost a decade later, she moved to Atlanta, enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu and secured her first professional job at The Ritz-Carlton Atlanta. She spent a decade working at prestigious Marriott properties across the United States, including JW Marriott Austin and the Gaylord Texan Resort. In 2020 the pandemic hit, and LaMara was furloughed.

“For me Covid was a huge awakening on every level,” LaMara said. “At the time I was still married, and I told my husband to give me one year for this passion project of mine.” She had a trademark and domain for Cornbread and Kimchi, which she’d owned for 17 years but never got around to doing anything with. “I thought to myself, ‘If I don’t do this now, I’m never gonna do it.’”

In just two years, LaMara launched a product line under the Cornbread and Kimchi name, which includes special blends of flour, breadcrumbs and seasonings showcasing her signature “Seoul food” style. She’s cooked at Charleston Wine + Food and is part of the the CookUnity chef collective in Atlanta. At CookUnity, LaMara cooks and curates heat-and-eat meals for customers throughout the Atlanta area, bringing her Seoul food to customers’ homes. Her dishes include Bulgogi Beef Japchae, Guava Barbecue Chicken with Creamy Macaroni, LaMama’s Meatloaf (her bestseller), Sweet and Spicy Miso Glazed Shrimp and Spicy Tofu Bi Bim Bop.

“It’s been an interesting experience,” LaMara said. “As a chef I thought I’ve done it all, but meal prep is a totally different animal: planning the menus, creating the recipes, thinking about execution and hoping the mailman delivers it on time.” She noted that CookUnity is a great place for chefs that don’t necessarily have the money to open their own restaurant but still want to get their food out there. Plus, her experience working in hotels and catering large events—as many as 2,000 a la carte covers on busy days—means that she can scale up recipes without compromising on quality. Since the Cornbread and Kimchi brand is so near and dear to her, and she wants her CookUnity offerings to be part of that, LaMara is one of the only Atlanta CookUnity chefs that is actually in the kitchen with her sous chefs, cooking and packaging the meals going out every week. She’s a passionate perfectionist, gaining some of the best ratings for her meals among customers and constantly tweaking recipes to make them better.

“I’m 50 years old and I’m starting over—who does that? Nobody,” LaMara said. “It’s scary, but so rewarding. I’m proud of my age and the things I’ve accomplished, and I want to share with people that there’s no set time that you have to adhere to or way that you have to do things. I think it’s important for all of us to do what we love or dream to do.”

As for LaMara, she’s just getting started. She’s working on a cookbook, expanding her Cornbread and Kimchi brand with more product offerings and taking her CookUnity dishes beyond Atlanta to other markets like Austin. She also hopes to do a Cornbread and Kimchi tour across the country, sharing her story and her unique blend of Korean and African American cuisine with even more people. Above all, she’s enjoying her entrepreneurial journey and keeping her mind open to opportunities and experiences as they come. “I feel like I finally know that I am doing what I’m supposed to,” she said. “This journey hasn’t been easy but as long as I’m taking care of myself, doing what I love to do and sharing my gifts with people I’m on the right track.”