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DANIEL GRAY/SEOULEATS.COM
HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
•
SEPTEMBER 2012
35
WHILE JUST ABOUT EVERY CITY
on earth is a blend of old
and new, in Seoul this is such a defining feature that it’s
sometimes disconcerting. Here, the young and the old exist
on either side of a divide so deep—ranging across food, cloth-
ing, housing and lifestyle choices—that the South Korean
capital seems tohave two identities jockeying for dominance.
Yet cultural harmony may be taking root, starting where all
great compromises begin: the food.
Leading this gastronomic sea change is Congdu, a 16-table
concept restaurant in the Seodaemun Museum of Natural
History. The setting is appropriate, given owner Vivian
Han’s mission to reinvent traditional Korean cooking using
molecular gastronomy techniques and color themes. And
soybeans. Lots of soybeans.
Han expected that modernizing Korean cooking—which
has few ties to the French and Scandinavian schools that
have revolutionized high-end cuisine in the rest of the
world—would be a challenge. So in 2002 she hired chef
Eric Kim, a veteran of Michelin-starred restaurants
Aqua, Coi and Noma, then built him a kitchen
and let him have his way.
These days the Congdu kitchen is
overseen by chef Hwan Eui Lee, who
shares Kim’s aesthetic. “I combine
traditional Korean and French
molecular techniques,”
THINK THIN
Congdu’s
beef tartare with caviar
marinated in 5-, 10- and
15-year-old soy sauces
FOOD & DRINK
AMARRIAGE
OF OPPOSITES
Seoul’s Congdu restaurant serves
something old, something
new, something borrowed and
something ... green?
BY CINDY-LOU DALE