The vast majority of our meals out in Seoul—and all the meals I’ve so far reported on—were eaten at more or less casual restaurants and at markets. We did, however, also eat three fancier meals; at places with Michelin stars, no less. Our interest was to see what contemporary high-end Korean cooking looks like, especially in the home country, where diners are intimately familiar with the cuisine in its traditional guises. The first of these three meals was eaten at Mingles, located in Gangnam-gu and currently the holder of two Michelin stars. We ate lunch there on a weekday in late February. Here’s how it went.

Mingles opened in Seoul in 2014. The chef, Mingo Kang, had garnered extensive experience abroad before coming home to Seoul to open a restaurant whose cuisine marries Korean ingredients, flavours, approaches, meal progressions etc. with those from European cuisines. The dread word “fusion” might rear its head in your thoughts at this point—as it did in mine when I first heard about the restaurant—but that’s not what’s going on here. This was a decidedly Korean meal. It might take some familiarity with Korean cuisine, or the presence of someone in your party intimately familiar with Korean cuisine, to understand the ways in which different dishes articulate/elaborate on their Korean roots but it would have been a very enjoyable meal even without that familiarity.

The restaurant is located in a tony end of Gangnam-gu. We may have been the only diners to arrive on foot (having taken the subway from our end of town). The restaurant is located on the second floor of its building and if you’ve not been there before it can be hard to spot. It’s basically above a place called The Void. You take an elevator up and emerge in a large attractive space, separated into three dining rooms that flow into each other, all filled with plenty of natural light from the large windows. It hadn’t been so difficult to get the lunch reservation but the restaurant was quite busy when we arrived a little after 1 pm. The tables are large, well-spaced and, as you would expect from a place with multiple Michelin stars, the accoutrements are all attractive. The food is served on custom Korean ceramics, bespoke cutlery is swapped out multiple times, and you are constantly shown the ingredients of the food you are about to eat (or at least convincing simulacra of them).  And the menu lists the pedigree of all ingredients. Service is very polished and attentive as well. The food is described in detail when it arrives but our server—who would only speak to us in English on account of my presence—was not always very easy to understand. As a result, I don’t have details on every single thing we ate or how it was made.

As I say, we were there for lunch. Whether you’re there for lunch or dinner, there is only one tasting menu. At lunch, however, it’s a bit cheaper. Which is not to say that it’s cheap. Lunch currently runs 280,000 won/head ($205). Dinner is 320,000 won/head ($234). That’s before supplements or wine (a pairing is available). Tax etc. is included and there’s no expectation of tipping (universally the case in Korea). So as high-end meals go, I suppose it’s not the most outrageous—you could pay as much or more in the Twin Cities for meals far less ambitious or sophisticated. That said, it’s quite a bit more expensive than the other Michelin 2-star place we ate at a few weeks later. And it’s best, in any case, to not find out just how much more expensive it is now than it was just a few years ago before the Michelin recognition appeared.

What do you get if you put down the money? (And you will have to put down half of it in a deposit when you make the reservation on Catch Table—it’s refundable if cancelled within 2-3 days of the reservation.) A very elaborate 10-course meal plus petit fours and tea/coffee. At the time of our meal there were no supplements available to tempt you into spending even more money. We did, however, resist the wine pairing: the missus barely drinks and I don’t like to drink during the day. (The dinner tasting menu adds on one more opening course and an additional component to one of the courses.)

Here are the courses at our lunch on February 28, 2024 with some comments:

• Sweet Potato Rice Cake, Chestnut Soup, Truffle, Chestnut Chip: The sweet potato injeolmi, a type of tteok, was a very nice start but the chestnut soup with the shaved black truffle mixed in was the star of this opening course.
• Korean Seasonal Raw Fish, Fried Hairtail Fish & Gamtae Roll: I regret to inform that among the things I was unable to catch was the name of the fish in the raw part of this duo, though it was reminiscent of the Japanese shima aji. The raw component was itself split into two parts; the second, I think, involved, the fish’s belly. Both parts were very good but we may have enjoyed the gamtae roll with fried hairtail filling even more.
• Korean Radish Namul & Rice Cake Tart, Shrimp, Perilla, Turnip: Namul refers to seasoned vegetables. In this case it would be mu namul with the seasoned radish, cut into thin disks, layered over each other and then over chopped seasoned shrimp above rice cake to form a “tart”. Perilla seeds and oil go over, and there’s more perilla oil above the wonderful, earthy piece of turnip alongside. The crisp head of the shrimp completed a wonderful trio of textures and delicate flavours.
• MINGLING POT : Seafood Morel & Hanwoo Cabbage Mandu, Sea Cucumber, Abalone, Spinach, Taro, Acorn Jelly, Cold Brewed Anchovy Broth: This was preceded by an elaborate display of all the components that go into the making of this delicate seafood stew. I can’t promise that I could pick or identify everyone of them in the finished dish but man, this was dynamite. One of the best dishes in an excellent meal.
• Jeju Fish, Crispy Black Rice, Dried Fish Porridge, Pressed Caviar: Though this piece of tilefish from Jeju with crisp black rice and pressed caviar etc. atop it in a pool of porridge made from dried fish (inevitably poured around the fish at the table) was pretty damned good as well.
• Sticky Rice Risotto, Crab, Tomato, Sesame Oil, Caviar: The hits continued with this dish somewhere between risotto (texturally) and congee (in terms of delicate flavour). A couple of small bites before the heavier dishes that followed but just excellent. This was also prefaced with a display of ingredients.
• Mushroom Chicken Roulade, 2 Ways Of Winter Root Vegetables: The first of two meat dishes, this featured a chicken and mushroom roulade coated in a very good mushroom-gochujang reduction and deoduk (a Korean root vegetable) two ways with a sesame bechamel. The roulade was very tasty but I may have preferred the root veg.
• Handon Soondae / Hanwoo (++Korean Beef), Yam, Kimchi: This was not our first encounter with Korean beef on this trip (we’d eaten some very good Korean beef at a bbq restaurant just a few days prior) but god, the beef was good. It was served on a plate with a jus that involved fermented things and a yam cake. Alongside were a piece of soondae and fruit kimchi. The soondae was very good but please forgive me for saying that I much preferred the humbler soondae we’d eaten at lunch just the previous day at Gwanghwamun Gukbap. The fruit kimchi didn’t do much for me.
• Bibimbab: Rice Ice Cream & Pudding, Soy Sauce, Sesame Oil: An audacious pre-dessert take on bibimbap with the rice in the form of both ice cream and pudding. It was served topped with a small pool of sesame oil into which we were instructed to squeeze a drop or two of some highly bespoke soy sauce. Just excellent and would make even the most resistant purist smile, I think.
• Sweet Pumpkin Rice Meringue & Cream, Pumpkin Sikhye Sorbet, Herb or
  JANG TRIO : Doenjang Creme-brulee, Ganjang Pecan, Gochujang Puff: You get a choice of desserts and of course we got one of each. Korean food is not heavy on desserts in the Euro-American (or for that matter, Indian) sense and so we were curious to see what these would be like. Neither quite hit the highs of that take on bibimbap but we enjoyed them both. If I had to eat only one again, I’d pick the Jang Trio.
• Beautiful Korean Sweets: We were shown a massive box of sweets/petit fours and furnished a set of descriptions. We thought at first that we had to choose but it turned out we each got one of each. All very nice with the gochujang-dark chocolate macaron probably my favourite.
• Fritz Coffee: Before the sweets/petit fours arrived we’d made a choice of coffee or tea. The missus got the Fritz coffee (Fritz is a high-end coffee bean importer) and I got one of the two teas on offer. I thought I’d ordered the Tieris but when it was set down no name was mentioned. I asked to confirm and there was some confusion as to whether I had been given that or the other (Jingkwang Culture). Well, whichever it was, it was very good.

For a look at the restaurant and what we ate, launch the very large slideshow below. Scroll down for some more thoughts on the meal as a whole and to see what’s coming next.

You will have got the sense from my descriptions of the various courses that we really enjoyed this meal. And it’s true: we did. It was creative, playful, experimental but quite clearly anchored in a tradition, if not weighed down by it. Not a cheap meal but I’d be tempted to visit again on our next outing to Seoul, which will probably be in a different season—as you might be able to tell, the food here is quite seasonal, with winter root vegetables and fish currently in season featured on the menu we ate. If you can swing the price, I would recommend it. I say this particularly since, as measured by Michelin stars, the high-end restaurant scene in Seoul is not really dominated by places serving takes on Korean cuisine. We did eat at two more such places, one closer to Mingles in approach, one closer to more traditional preparations/presentations. I’ll have reports on both in the coming weeks.

Next up, however, will be another report from Delhi. That’ll be this weekend. And if I have time I’ll try to get that report on my meals at Noryangjin Fish Market up as well.