Last month, my wife Jun and I visited our motherland Korea to celebrate my brother’s wedding. It was not an easygoing trip with a hectic schedule to balance family obligations and catching up with friends we hadn’t seen in a long time, but nonetheless we had a great time. We also used this occasion to visit a number of restaurants in Seoul that had long been on my radar to see how far Korea’s culinary scene has come along. Our first restaurant visit was to VINHO; named after chef Jeon Seong-bin ( “Vin”) and sommelier Kim Jin-ho (“Ho”), it had firmly established itself as a contemporary restaurant where wine is the star of the dinner, not just an ancillary to the food. Since my sister-in-law is also a huge wine enthusiast, Jun and I decided to meet her at the restaurant to check out the food and wine. Overall, VINHO lived up to my expectations and I was very pleased with our dinner experience.
It is hard to define the food at VINHO; I would say it is contemporary cuisine with loose connections to Korean tradition. In any event, almost all of the dishes that came out from the tasting menu (250,000 won per person; slightly below $200 based on the exchange rate during our visit) stood out on their own. The opening dish of tomato and cheongyang pepper ice cream, followed by handmade tofu and scallop with chamwe (Korean melon) jus, offered a refreshing jolt to my palate that raised my expectations for the dishes to come. The beautifully plated jack mackerel with lettuce with anocvy cream sauce on the side was another hit where the dish tasted just as delicious as it looked, and the chicken prepared sous vide style (inspired by the beloved chicken soup dish samgyetang) showed a playful side of the kitchen’s ingenuity.
One of my favorite dishes was the eggplant with salted anchovy and black rice, with its depth in flavor that was very memorable. I could never say no to fresh, chewy abalone and really loved what the kitchen did with two different sauces of sweet potato and chili oil; it is one of the dishes I will think about for a long time. The seasonal fish (the kitchen used dukja byeong-eo, a type of butterfish) with green pea and cheongyang pepper sauce would not be out of place at any other top fine-dining restaurant, and the lamb accompanied by burdock and perilla leaf was also impeccably cooked. The desserts were also strong performers, starting with watermelon jasmine sorbet with coconut milk jelly beneath hibiscus chip, and then pine nut ice cream with hojicha milk foam that gave a nice, rustic touch.
Nowadays, getting a reservation at a popular restaurant in Korea is super competitive, not unlike what you encounter in other big foodie cities like New York. I was therefore pleasantly surprised that getting a reservation at VINHO was fairly manageable. I liked the open counter concept of the restaurant space with an industrial chic vibe where you can interact with the staff more freely while they bring a dish or a wine. Speaking of the wine, given the restaurant’s reputation for its stellar wine list, I felt compelled to try the full wine pairing (also at 250,000 won per person) and it was a very wise choice. We were all deeply impressed with the smart and thoughtful pairing choices, like a Trebbiano white from a renowned producer in Tuscany that I can’t stop thinking about or a skin-contact Italian Timorasso that I couldn’t find online anywhere. In terms of wine pairings, I would not hesitate to rate VINHO as one of the all-time top five experiences. Each interaction with the staff on the wines that were brought out was a very nice mini lesson on each wine’s origin and character that I immensely enjoyed. For any food and wine lover living in or visiting Korea, VINHO is an absolute must-visit dining destination.
KenScale: 8.5/10 (Jun’s Score: 8.25/10)
Address: 38, Hakdong-ro 43-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Korea
Website: https://www.restaurantvinho.kr/
Reservation via CatchTable (Korea’s online reservation app)
