Pictures by Danny Kim
Jungsik, which opened not way back within the fabled outdated Chanterelle house in Tribeca, aspires to be the primary trendy haute-Korean restaurant in all of New York Metropolis. Because of this on the bar you possibly can take pleasure in soothing $17 cocktails rimmed with crushed seaweed or combined with unique elements like inexperienced plums, and an unfiltered Korean rice wine known as makgeolli. The tables at this formidable little institution are coated with crisp white linens, and the painstakingly ready dinners are served in handcrafted white bowls and large plates as massive as gull wings. There’s traditional Korean fried rooster on the menu, but it surely’s caught with a bamboo toothpick and served as a thimble-size amuse. The one dinner choices are a three-course $80 or five-course $115 prix fixe, which, as any David Chang freak can let you know, is nearly sufficient to purchase all the menu on the unique Momofuku outlet.
The person behind this rash experiment in worldwide eating is a proficient younger cook dinner named Jung Sik Yim. He’s a veteran of Aquavit and Bouley, in addition to a number of grand, Michelin-approved kitchens in Europe, and he runs a well-liked restaurant in Seoul known as Jungsik Dang, which has been praised for its “nouvelle” method to Korean delicacies. Right here at Yim’s New York department, the previously ornate house has been transformed in a generic trendy model (clear, unadorned partitions, white curtains over the home windows) and divided into three dimly lit, barely feng shui–challenged rooms, the final two separated by a sliding door. On my visits, dinner was served within the slender center room, which has white banquettes alongside each partitions and is about with two small rows of tables that face one another, like within the eating automotive of a prepare. There’s additionally a white acrylic bar within the entrance of the home and a curiously lifeless gallery house known as Dice, the place you possibly can study (and buy) the work of Korean artists.
“This isn’t like chowing down with the household on thirty second Avenue,” mentioned one of many Korean-food snobs at my desk as she took hesitant little bites of a daintily deconstructed salad model of bibimbap made with two sorts of fastidiously diced tomato, amongst different issues, and a spoonful of savory inexperienced sorbet flavored with arugula. The classes from which diners create their meal at Jungsik are salad, rice / noodles, seafood, meat, and dessert. Many of the dishes are served in petite tasting parts, and plenty of have names like 4 Seasons (an intricately conceived although barely wan-tasting boutique-vegetable tart), Spoonable (acorn-squash purée topped with beet sauce and in a cloud of tart yogurt foam), and Mr. Kim Halibut (a superbly poached piece of fish spackled on prime with a scrim of crushed seaweed and propped on a sq. of daikon radish).
The perfect of those nouvelle creations are those with roots in traditional Korean homestyle cooking. Within the rice / noodle class, my tasters and I loved a fragile, risotto-style model of the beefy rice dish miyeok, and an ingenious creation merely known as “sea urchin” made with a mash of seaweed-flavored rice and fried quinoa topped with shaved onion, dabs of contemporary uni, and a spicy kick of house-made kimchee. And Yim’s scrumptious rendition of the winter noodle dish kalguksu is threaded with entire clams and sliced garlic, and spiced with a kick of jalapeño. Among the many meat dishes, the Basic Galbi quick ribs are dressed with boutique crimson peppers and crispy fried rice desserts formed like peanuts, and the chef’s signature model of pork stomach (“5 Senses pork”) is reduce in gentle, crunchy-topped squares, flavored with pickled sesame-seed leaves, amongst different issues, and served on a bit of polished black slate.
As one trendy, mannered course succeeds one other, nevertheless, it’s arduous to not really feel that infectious, communal high quality that makes good Korean cooking particular being slowly leached out of the meal. One drawback is the dreary, barely haunted setting, which doesn’t match the ambition or artistry of the perfect of the cooking. One other is the prix fixe setup, which, apart from the fee, provides a stagy formality to the proceedings. “I don’t assume I’ll be bringing my grandparents right here,” mentioned the Korean snob as she picked at dated Bouley-style creations like truffle rooster (boneless, sous vide–softened rounds of chicken in a beef-and-radish broth) and Yim’s Tribeca lobster, which was expertly poached in a wealthy butter sauce and admirably plated with an assortment of boutique microgreens, however lacked any trendy gourmand twist.
The flowery tasting menus at Jungsik change on a seasonal foundation, and you probably have the monetary assets, you possibly can complement your nouvelle-Korean dinner with professionally chosen wine pairings (a further $50 for the three-course dinner, $75 for the five-course). There have been solely 4 desserts on the menu I sampled, and, in accordance with gourmand custom, they’re accompanied with palate-cleansing sorbets and plates of financiers and macarons tinged, on this occasion, with unique Asian elements like mugwort leaf and yuzu. Essentially the most attention-grabbing pastry creation is a sort of deconstructed French-style baba, soaked not with rum however citrus juices and organized on the plate with bits of apple and spumes of Calvados foam. The least attention-grabbing (pumpkin-flavored panna cotta and segments of “raspberry cremeux,” a wierd pound cake made out of burdock root with the consistency of toothpaste) style much less like some groundbreaking type of worldwide fusion than failed experiments from the doomed kitchen at Chanterelle.
Jungsik
Deal with: 2 Harrison St., nr. Hudson St.; 212-219-0900
Hours: Dinner Monday via Saturday 5 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.
Costs: $80 for three-course prix fixe,$115 for five-course.
Excellent Meal: Bibimbap, sea urchin, miyeok or spicy kalguksu, 5 Senses pork, apple rice-wine baba.
Word: The images of Yim’s dishes on the restaurant’s web site are among the most lovely meals images this grumpy critic has ever seen.
Scratchpad: Three stars for the formidable cooking, minus one for the dreary house and one other for the awkward and costly prix fixe setup.
Photograph: Danny Kim