EVETT — Restaurant in Seoul

A fantastic experience in Evett! Not enough words to describe how wonderful this experience is.

I love everything from food, wine, to environment and interaction with the whole team.

#Food# Every dish has a perfect balance, every single dish is a whole story, it's amazing how they present the local Korean food in an innovative way. I enjoyed all the dishes, the most impressive one to me are: Focus – combine of different type of mushroom with a fried potato “pancake” Wild – Sorbet with the ant, I actually quite like the natural sourness from ant, taste like lemon Confort – sepcial buckwheat noodles Hanwoo – Ok this is the best beef course I had this year. I like the black source, some nuts inside? no truffle but a bit taste of truffle, sorry I only remember the good taste, I had too much wine so I didn't catched what chef said :(

Chef also invited us to go the kitchen to grill and decorate our own marshmallows (a bit too sweet for me cause I don't like sweet dessert… though the other dessert course are all fresh, I love the "refresh", "forest", both fresh and well-balanced). Then we had 52 degrees soju together. The team also present a hand-drawn painting with all the ingredient we had for the dinner.

#Environment# Located on a quiet street in Apgujeong near Dosan Park. They arranged a private dining room for me especially, as they saw I’m foreigner and definitely gave me special care.

#Service# Very good service, thanks team! Special thanks to Joseph, Alex, Yanis and Seunghwan. Btw everyone speaks perfect English.

Yanis – He’s the best and the most humorous sommelier, good recommendation, Vosne-Romanee 2020, strawberry cream, medium acidity, lovely tannins, great depth, we enjoyed this bottle. As this is our first time dine in Evett, Yanis suggest we have 1 or 2 bottle of red wine instead of taking the wine pairing to better experience the food taste. I will definitely come back again, I want to try the Korean wine pairing.

Alex – the most charming chef! Among the chef team, we had most of interactions with Alex, I can feel his passion, earnest, seriousness to food. I like the way how he explained the inspiration of every dishes. Yanis said Chef Alex is shy, we don’t agree, that’s the romance from a Nordic type chef.

Joseph – Of course Joseph, I came here for Chef Joseph. I watched the Netflix show Culinary War Class, after searching all the white chef’s restaurant, I’m most interested in Evett. Not easy to book though, I happened to catch 1 slot 3 days before the dinner date, then I booked it immediately, so lucky to get this spot.

Seunghwan – very good service, Seunghwan explained every dishes to us, very clear, I can definitely feel his profession and passion for the restaurant.

#Price# ~KRW 280k for dinner set, 100% worth it, good price compare to fine...

When we travel, we try to book into at least one special meal at a fine dining restaurant. And this trip to Seoul coincided with my birthday. Restaurant Evett was all I could have wanted. The tasting menu introduced us to Korean ingredients, flavours and techniques. The meal was playful and engaging: an amuse-bouche came as a colourful leaf on a small tree, covered in flower petals (it was a cracker filled with mackerel). Abalone in cream was hidden beneath a black crust, the same colour as the ceramic dish, in the form of an upturned Gat, the Korean traditional hat.

I would highly recommend doing the drinks pairing with the Korean drinks. I was familiar with none of them. They were so interesting: shochu infused with flavours and for one, carbonation, and other drinks, generously poured by our charming sommelier, Yannis, and so delicious.

As expected, from a restaurant of this quality, everything was beautiful: the setting, the vessels on which the food were served (including a dessert bowl entirely of ice), the glassware. All the staff were completely lovely and charming. Chef Joseph was the one to point me to the toilets: now that’s a level of personal service I didn’t expect!

It was so great to try the famous Korean Hanwoo beef, which is compared to Wagyu. It was so rich, like tasty fat barely held together with flesh. The jus was super-intense. There was also a meatball (who doesn’t like a meatball) with two sauces, one light green and one white. This was served with a small portion of rice, an explanation of why the rice was so special. I love when a chef takes something that is considered humble and shows me a new level. They served the beef with a kimchi sherbet, which was inventive, and seemed appropriate for Korean food!

My favourite dessert was a slice of melon with a delicious jelly set in it, strewn with flower petals. This was over a trifle, with Korean flavours, with shaved ice on top, nestled into a bowl of ice.

And I must mention the course where we were invited into the kitchen, toasted our own marshmallows, which were then taken from us, dressed with a delicious sauce and more flower petals, and returned as a beautiful and delicious sweet mouthful. We then had the opportunity to take a photo with Chef Joseph and received a surprise gift, which we were very charmed by. And because it was my birthday, I also received an extra dessert, with a candle in it. They really know how to make you feel special here, birthday or not.

I really can’t recommend Restaurant Evett enough. I only wish it were in my home...

We just came from our lunch tasting course. Luckly we've done quite a bit of fine dining in the past year or so in and outside of Korea and our expectations weren't too high but wasn't low at all.

Evett is quite unique in how it is cooking and serving western style of dishes with Korean ingredients. As written in the menu, its effort to reveal different sides of the ingredients is apparent throughout the course.

The welcome drink was non alcohol. The mixture of sparkling water, flower syrup, and egg white. Little bit sweet, but still good enough to increase appetite.

The starter was stuffed shell. I couldn't hear the explanation clearly. It could be nice if servers check whether guests have any questions. We are curious and willing to learn more about the dishes, yet often, not just at Evett, encounter this kind of unclear, single sided explanation. So as a result we didn't eat the shell. And another manager came and asked why we didn't eat the shells. We ate them afterward, so our first tasting course wasn't done as the chef intended.

Lunch tasting course (May 2020) had more seafood dishes than meat/vegies. All dishes were quite nice. But I liked the first warm dish which I don't remember the name. It was a bowl of custard topped with abalone and some kinds of puree. So tasty!

The 1st main dish was steamed fish with Korean caviar made of pine tree flower seeds (not quite sure). It was fantastic! The 2nd main dish was made with Jirisan black pork. I don't know how they did it but meat was unbelievably soft. It didn't have strong pork smell either. The sauce was not too salty and leek as garnish was perfect to eat with. I was quite impressed by the texture and flavors.

The deserts were excellent. The chef completely changed my perception about Korean yellow melon with this dish. I absolutely loved it.

We did Korean wine pairing. It wasn't bad but didn't impress me either. Next time will go for the wine pairing. Also they ask your choice of water at the beginning, sparking and etc. It is not obvious and not written anywhere but they charge 10,000 KRW for a bottle of sparkling water.

I really enjoyed lunch tasting course so asked how often they change the menu. The answer was "soon" like next week since they are working on the new menu.

For all foreigners visiting Korea, I would highly recommend this restaurant. Also I would like to bring my foreign guests in near future. Though not perfect in service, it was a quite impressive lunch tasting course.

Looking forward to...