OPNNG — Restaurant in Seoul

Michelin 2023, 2024? Hmmm. Heres my honest review.

I entered with high expectations of ambiance and service. We were politely seated on some uncomfortable wooden chairs without padding typical in an office, The menu looked amazing and selected most of the upgrades. Food: Food was ready in less than 10 minutes, the first dish was sashimi styled mackerel. Taste was good. As the next few dishes came out, the common theme was the shared taste of blow torching food, which is different than grilling or broiling, which none of the food was. The balance between the texture of the proteins and it's delicate natural flavors were drowned out by the intense aromas, and tastes of the sauces. Visually, i didnt like the choice of dark muted colors and excess sauces covering the dishes. The raw beef and tuna dished at the start were amazing. The abalone dish, mine came half melted and collapses, very different than the identical dish served on the table.

Service: wait staff were in a rush to describe the dishes which sounded like reading back from a memorized paragraph at an auctioneers pace. Although very cordial, lacked personability. No staff requested for feedback on any dish. It's normal in Korea to not have linens, and as such disposable wet towels were provided upon seating. It was until the 3rd dish that the staff cleared the napkins and their associated package.

Interior: minimalistic, with reverbing acoustics. I could hear word by word the conversation at the table 5 meters away. So private conversations are a no no here. Lastly, the venue was ice cold, cold enough to need a light jacket. So bring a scarf or wear a thick sweater. I know it's a tasting menu but the TOTAL portion is tiny, I felt I needed to go to another restaurant to get some instant...

The food was satisfying. But dinner in Michelin restaurants with a high reputation such as "Mingles" or "Onjium" would not have been more expensive. In this regard, the price-performance ratio is not acceptable here. I also experienced a significant irritation regarding the wine! In a good restaurant, I do not like drinking a whole bottle of one and the same wine. I prefer to try several wines by the glass. The thing about this restaurant is that when you book online, you have to explicitly agree that you will drink a bottle of wine. I had no doubt that this meant the amount of a whole bottle. So 700 milliliters. No problem, since I intended to drink as many glasses of different wines that I could easily reach that total amount. On site, however, they insisted that I actually order a whole bottle of a very specific wine indeed. This is a house policy that is completely incomprehensible. This is how you frustrate your customers and clients. So I enjoyed an entire bottle of one and the same wine, instead of five different wines by the glass. However, it has to be mentioned that the selection of open wines to order by the glass was ridiculously small anyway. Only about five different wines were offered. For a high-priced wine bar, this is joke! Eating with some anger is rarely a pleasure, a waiter should be...

We visited the restaurant last night after making the reservation on Chatch table. We thought we were having the tasting menu however when we arrived they told us that it wasn’t possible because of the time it was (9pm). They only serve the tasting menu from 6-8:30pm. I would have liked to know that since it was not clear when I did the booking. The atmosphere was nice and the service was fine. Although there was a slight smell of sewage. The food however wasn’t extraordinary. The fries were very good and the beef tacos were also tasty. The main dish, the meat, was unfortunately not satisfying for the price. Apart from been extremely small portion the meat was just fine. We ordered some comté cheese and chocolate mousse. We had to return the cheese because it was simply so dry that it didn’t taste anything like comté (or cheese). We kept the mousse although it was frozen and it wasn’t really a mousse. But it tasted good. It was overall disappointing experience specially when we read so good comments about it. I hope we were just unlucky and that normally things are different. I hope this comment encourages improve the menu and...