Welcome to Mr. Jones Supper Club, a chef’s choice experience in a cozy apartment that’s completely free of charge. Operating out of a one-bedroom tucked away on a side street in NYC’s trendy Greenwich Village, the restaurant is as intimate as it is exquisite.

The conventional definition of a supper club is a gathering spot where strangers share hearty meals and imbibe fine wine and cocktails. And while Mr. Jones Supper Club offers a high-end meal, it is uniquely distinct because it’s an entirely one-man operation. Vincent Woo, the founder and cook behind Mr. Jones, does all of the menu planning, meal prep, cooking, serving, and clean-up solo. In between courses, Woo rejoins the seven guests eating at his dinner table.

I had a chance to spend a day with Woo. We wandered through 13 different market stalls and shops across downtown Manhattan to prepare an elaborate feast. If you spend even a few hours with him, you’ll quickly realize that he’s as meticulous as he is inventive. He is almost obsessive in his hunt for specific items — whether it’s a specialty maitake mushroom at Chelsea market or a sweet pork jerky from a small Malaysian store.

The meal consisted of lychee martinis, copious amounts of wine and six courses:

black ink scallops with coconut milk and Thai basil hen of the woods mushroom with porcini and miso-cured egg six-hour pork belly with chili caramel and apple slaw egg custard with black truffles, uni and umami 28-day dry-aged rib-eye steak Chinese dried mushroom salad with sichuan oil

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Falling in love with cooking

For Woo, cooking did not begin as a passion project; desperation led him to the culinary arts.

Woo, who did not want to disclose his age, was born in Malaysia, raised in Australia and ended up in Finland 10 years ago for a short-term job opportunity. It was there that he found himself spending a lot more time in the kitchen.

“It’s not because Finland has the greatest cuisine in the world; I actually found it to be one of the worst. They don’t know what to do with their food and there’s very little seasoning, and with no good Asian food in Finland, I forced myself to learn how to cook purely out of survival,” he said.

One bright spot, he discovered, was the country’s fresh seafood and local fish markets. Woo took to watching cooking videos on YouTube, a new platform at the time, and dabbled with everything from sushi and sashimi to a variety of curries.

After his one-year gig ended, Woo decided to extend his stay to refine his newfound cooking skills and burgeoning obsession. During one of his visits to a small seafood hall, he even stumbled onto an opportunity to work as a sushi chef. “There was a lady there, and she saw me shopping for fish one day and she asked me, ‘Are you making sushi?’ And I said, ‘I’m trying to learn.’ She then asked me if I wanted to come work for her,” he recalled.

Little did she know, Woo went home to re-watch several YouTube videos. After studying tutorials for a week, he returned to accept her offer.

View photos One of the stalls at Hakaniemi Kauppahalli market, Helsinki, Finland More

Operating at a small stand in the Helsinki market hall Hakaniemi Kauppahalli, Woo said it was the most popular sushi place there, but that he felt like he was playing make-believe.

“It was pretty bad, but I was the only one who looked authentic … It was all a facade!”

Why a supper club?

After his stint in Helsinki, Woo moved back to Melbourne and started regularly cooking for friends. When he moved to New York in 2015 for a job as a mergers and acquisitions consultant, he didn’t have anyone to cook for.

“I was completely by myself, facing a new life and a new job. I thought it would be a good way to try to meet people and introduce them to Australian and Asian flavors. It was important for me to start meeting people and get myself out there. And it’s actually quite hard in New York because people keep coming and going.”

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