Miele Guide: Korean restaurant finally makes Asia's Top 20

Seoul took a big step forward as a culinary capital as its chefs won Asia-wide accolades in Singapore last week.

For the first time a Korean restaurant, Pierre Gagnaire à Séoul, was listed among Asia’s Top 20 in The Miele Guide, a compendium of the continent’s finest dining venues, released annually. 

Its Jeju pork belly and tilefish dish was highlighted as a great example of what the kitchen talents there can do. 

“It is exciting to welcome the first Korean representative in the Top 20: Pierre Gagnaire à Séoul, which has been considered the exemplary standard which other fine dining restaurants in Korea benchmark against,” reads The Miele Guide’s introduction to the eighth-ranked restaurant.

The stars

Representing Pierre Gagnaire à Séoul at The Miele Guide’s annual gala dinner in Singapore on Thursday were chef Bong Jun-ho, one of the heads of that kitchen, and Kong Jy Won, assistant manager of the marketing team at the Lotte Hotel, where the restaurant is located. 

“We weren’t sure we’d win anything,” Kong said in Singapore. “But we were told by the organizers to come, so we’re glad we’re here.”

Another Korean chef, Kim Ho Joon, 18, found himself among those feted at the gala. He was one of two winners of a Miele culinary scholarship to At-Sunrice GlobalChef Academy, Singapore’s only culinary school.

“It’s just a short time that I’ve been excited about culinary stuff,” said Kim, who began training as a chef only a year ago after graduating high school. “But I really believe that I’m going for it.”

Hotel kitchens

Both chefs Bong and Kim are steeped in the hotel fine dining tradition.

“As a Korean, we consider fine dining to be in hotels,” Kim explained. “That is Korean culture. You can ask any citizen while on the street, ‘Where do you think the best restaurant will be?’ and they say hotels. Hotels, hotels and hotels.”

It was a two-month internship in the kitchen of a Paris Hyatt that spurred Kim to pursue culinary training. Previously he’d focused on hotel management. From Paris, he moved on to Seoul’s Park Hyatt for four months.

Chef Bong, 48, has spent not months, but years in Seoul's hotel kitchens. As chefs de cuisine, he and Julien Boscus, 31, run the kitchen at Pierre Gagnaire à Séoul, which opened in October 2008. 

To prepare, chef Bong said he spent three months training in France.

Chef Boscus, who joined the kitchen in May 2010, emphasized the importance of learning technique.

“In order to reproduce the flavor of local ingredients in Paris (for Seoul), chef Pierre Gagnaire did not neglect his study of trends,” chef Boscus said from Seoul. “We are always seeking something new, and considering the characteristics of Korean cuisine, we introduce a new menu every month.”

The marriage of sophisticated Western culinary techniques with Asian flavors was a common thread throughout The Miele Guide’s Top 20, the guide’s publisher, Ate Media, said in a release, noting Pierre Gagnaire à Séoul’s exemplary dish of Jeju pork belly and tilefish.

Pierre Gagnaire à Séou, 35/F Lotte Hotel Seoul, 1 Sogong-dong Jung-gu, Seoul (서울시 중구 소공동 1, 롯데호텔 35층); +82 2 371 7181; www.pierregagnaire.co.kr

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