Onjium, Seoul

Onjium had been on my list of restaurants I wanted to visit for a long time. I love Korean food, loved Mingles on my last visit and was looking for my next superbe Korean fine dining experience.

And Onjium met my already super high expectations.

The second you walk through that door on the 4th floor you enter this beautiful room with a fully transparent kitchen and get greeted by the smiling staff and the chefs Cho Eun-hee and Park Sung-Bae.

I was seated right in front of the kitchen, my preffered place of seating, and got handed the drinks menu. The options for non alcoholic drinks were limited to tea and a couple of foreign made juices. So I asked the server if they had any korean non alcoholic cold options and she said straight away that shes got just the thing for me and came back with a homemade lemonade with tangerine peel tea, lemon and ginger that was just perfect.  

The atmosphere in the whole restaurant was one of the best ive ever experienced. Everyone around me from staff to customers and the head chefs were smiling and enjoying themselves. During the lunch chef Park Sung-Bae would often ask me how im enjoying myself, ask some questions and even offered me some of samyangju he made. A three stage korean rice wine that was delicious. Chef Cho Eun-Hee would very often come to serve me the dish herself even though her english was limited. Often asking help from staff to explain her thoughts. She had this passionate look in her eyes, full of joy and excitement that just made me more excited about the food as well. We chatted about the food and ceramics and I learned so much more about temple and traditional Korean cooking from her.

Now before we begin with the food, a lot of the items were not on the menu itself but I tried to note them down after they explained the dishes. So bear with me and if there are any koreans that can explain things further, see ive missed or misunderstood something, please let me know. There was a lot to learn for me and there were definitely some ingredients ive never had/ heard of before.

The meal started off with a Bang- pung Juk or pounded/crushed? rice porridge with silver Glehnia leaves. The porridge was very mild in flavour but warm and soothing and a nice start.

Then came an assortment of small bites
Left top: fried fish and fried seasonal vegetables
Middle: rice cake with tomato and olive oil
Right top: Dried persimmon and cheese
Left bottom :Rice puff with dried beef jerky powder
Right bottom: Squid with mustard sauce and a slice of pork(?)

All of the bites were really great and were very diverse flavour and texture wise. My favourite being the rice puff with beef jerky powder.

The second course was the mung bean jelly bibimbap. Ive had bibimbap before but never this good. The cook on all the vegtables and meat was perfect and the mung bean jelly noodles worked so well with it. Being both super tasty and refreshing with clean yet complex flavours that combined in this perfect harmony. Ill never look at bibimbap the same way.

Next up was Chef Cho Eun-Hee's personal favourite, a mugwort white bean pancake with some soy marinated wild garlic leaves and stems. I saw her carefully cooking the pancakes herself with full focus in the kitchen which made this dish just that little bit extra special to me. The pancake was slightly crispy on the outside but oh so soft on the inside with a light flavour which was nice on its own but really came to life for me when combined with the marinated wild garlic.

Then came the octopus with spinach, super thin strips of beef, onion, green onion, sesame and some herbs, stir fried in some soy sauce. It was the best stir fried dish ive ever had. Hard to explain why but it was just spot on. Wish I could have it every day.

The flight of small bites afterwards just continued the chain of great dishes. From left to right ( or top to bottom, sorry)
– thinly sliced abalone with pear
– soy marinated cabbage
– clam with mushroom
– halibut with pine nuts
– pressed cuttlefish with yuzu kosho
– smoked yellowtail with koriander and gochugaru

Again. All bangers. Maybe the abalone had a slight bit too much chew to my liking but id really be nitpicking at that point. The cabbage stood out to me since it had such an intense but delicious soy flavour. But id be hard-pressed to choose a favourite.

Up next were some bean powder noodles with perilla oil and some kind of fiddlehead.
Very light and tasty.

Then came the first main course: thinly sliced beef with a very light soy marinade and an assortment of marinated vegetables. Another big win ( I know its getting repetitive at this point already). The beef was perfectly cooked, vegetables were super tasty and wrapping the vegetables in the beef slices was like creating a little slice of heaven.

The second and final main course came soon after consisting of rice made from a mix of korean rice varieties with crab , bamboo shoots as well as other vegetables and a crab innard sauce.
It came with a burdock root and anchovy soup and some type of kimchi.

The rice was super fragrant and tasty could stand on its own perfectly with the crab and vegetables but became even better with the crab sauce and the soup. The kimchi was a bit too strong and overpowering for the rest of the dish In my opinion but was still very tasty on its own.

Before the main dessert they served a tangerine sorbet with tangerine tea that was also used in my drink. Refreshing, light, nice.

Then onto the main dessert, a rice mousse with red bean paste on the bottom and some strawberries. Now im not a fan of red bean paste desserts. I dont know why but ive never really enjoyed them. Yet this one I loved. The red bean paste was very smooth and paired super well with the rice mousse which id describe as a light rice mascarone. The strawberries added a nice fresh and sweet touch. Lovely.

To finish off they had three mignardises. A sesame chip that was light crispy roasted and sweet, a great candied fig and their version of some kind of korean cookie wrapped with sticky rice mochi and covered with mugwort flakes. Another really nice bite.

Overall I loved my experience at Onjium. The best in recent memory and while I really loved Mingles as well Id say Onjium was even better. Definitely in service but also food wise. Its rare to have a fine dining meal where you love pretty much every single dish and having that with stellar, personal and clearly heartfelt service is even more rare.

Onjium is the kind of fine dining restaurant id want to go back to in a heartbeat. In my opinion maybe the best compliment one can give to a fine dining spot since it generally means choosing not to try a new, exciting place instead.

If youre ever in Seoul, id highly recommend visiting Onjium.
Especially the value for money is great since the lunch was only 200 000 won, about 115 EUR.