One of the hottest restaurant tables in Seoul at the moment is probably Restaurant San, led by chef Jo Seunghyun who used to work at The French Laundry in Napa Valley and Benu in San Francisco. It was definitely the top choice among all the restaurants that my wife Jun and I were hoping to visit during our time in Seoul; fortunately, a close friend of ours who is also a huge foodie was able to secure a reservation for the three of us. I looked forward to checking out the chef’s culinary philosophy shaped by his life experience including having worked at some of the top restaurants in the world. Would Restaurant San offer a type of experience that would wow people like us who have been to a fair number of fine dining restaurants, including those based on Korean influence? Overall, I had a lot to like about the food coming from the kitchen.
The tasting menu (380,000 won per person; slightly below $300 at the current exchange rate) featured many dishes that were technically very sophisticated with stunning presentation. While the first few courses (crystal caviar with snow crab with egg yolk pudding to eat with brioche, followed by shrimp naengchae (Korean cold salad) and then crispy tilefish) didn’t quite make a statement, I started to pay attention from the beautiful bowl of chrysanthemum tofu soup, which, despite the pork consommé used in the soup, was light and refreshing. I wondered if this dish should’ve served as the opening dish to kick off the course. One of my favorite dishes at San was the Hamburg steak jeon; a playful take on Hamburg steak and omelet, I really loved how the rich flavor from the steak, Époisses cheese and black truffle came together.
Other dishes mostly delivered on creativity and execution as well, such as Mulhwe with a variety of seafood ingredients and Korean melon (chamoe) dongchimi soup or the braised fresh abalone with soy sauce made with Ibérico pork that was a joy to savor each bite. While the sauteed scallop with pomme purée felt a little safe, I did enjoy the charcoal-grilled beef short rib bulgogi with chili Béarnaise sauce for its tender meat. One of the signature dishes at the restaurant is the chef’s personal take on Gukbap (made by himself in front of every table) inspired by his childhood memory in Busan. Made with pork broth and accompanied by noodle and rice as well as caviar, it was indeed a showstopper with explosion of umami flavor that would blow your mind. The desserts were also more or less very good, from the sorbet palate cleanser to the pecan and acorn tart (inspired by the beloved Korean dish dotori-muk) to sweet corn ice cream, although it didn’t quite have the It dish that I would remember for a long time.
As noted above, getting a reservation at San is extremely difficult and requires getting onto the CatchTable reservation link the moment the reservation window opens on the 15th each month for the next monthly period and praying that you snag one of the coveted spots. We also did a wine pairing menu, and not surprisingly there were some really excellent, thought-provoking wines (plus a beer and a sake) from the pairing that were well-designed the complement the food. The overall atmosphere of the dining room is not much different from a top fine dining restaurant you would encounter elsewhere, and the service was overall attentive and professional. Toward the end of the meal, we had a chance to chat with chef Jo a bit and take photos together. He seemed like a genuinely nice Busan guy with charming accent from the area. Out of pure coincidence, we happened to dine next to a table where the head chef at restaurant Crony in Tokyo (where we were planning to dine on Jun’s birthday the week after) was dining in advance of his collaboration dinner at San, so we had a chance to say hi to him as well (more on Crony in a separate post). I would say that, having dined at some of the top Korean-inspired fine dining restaurants before (such as Atomix in NYC), I was hoping to experience a bit more delightful surprise from the dishes at Restaurant San that I hadn’t encountered before. Jun and I keep talking about how our standard as “jaded” fine dining enthusiasts might have become impossible to impress these days and we felt the same day after coming out of San. In any event, though, it was still genuinely excellent and I can tell why it is in such demand from avid Korean diners these days.
KenScale: 8.5/10 (Jun’s Score: 8.25/10)
Address: B1, 6, Eonju-ro 168-gil, Gangman-gu, Seoul, Korea
Website: https://restaurantsan.com/en/
Reservation via CatchTable (Korea’s online reservation app)
