This regal restaurant behind the Mnet building in Cheongdam-dong serves painstakingly beautiful Royal Korean Cuisine. There’s no sign in English, but you can recognize Woori-Ga by the little bamboo garden with the stone steps out the front. The restaurant has egg-shell colored walls, white linen tablecloths and creamy lighting. The some of the walls as well as the ceiling lighting fixtures have antique Korean doors covered with Hanji paper. The effect casts shadows of doors around the restaurant. The table settings usually have big green leaves under them and the napkin holders are oftentimes accented with fresh flowers or branches. Big white candles, stones and flowers minimally embellish the inside of the main dining room. The restaurant’s simple monochrome décor sets the backdrop for the elaborate dishes yet to come. There are a la carte choices, but most people will come for the full set course meal, which will includes course after course of delectable delicacies. The names of these dishes may not mean anything to the Royal cuisine neophyte, so I just tried to describe them here:
Courses include dishes like Radish Kimchee soup, Gu Geoul Pan (Veggies wrapped in thinly sliced radish and dipped in wasabi) Shrimp on a bed of rice cake, fried and breaded seafood, pork or beef, cold noodles with vegetables in a seafood/beef broth, crispy veggies wrapped in a thinly sliced layer of beef, Kalbi Jim (tender marinated pieces of beef rib slowly stewed with sweet potatoes, carrot and chesnut). Typically at the end of the meal, you will get a sweet yet tart fruit tea to cleanse the palate and following that is a tray of rice cakes and nutty tasting desserts.
The most impressive thing about the food is the presentation. The food designer believes in titillating all the senses, thus through sumptuous visual presentation, she believes the food tastes even better. The pottery dishes are typically adorned with leaves, branches and bamboo sticks. The dishes really look like art on a plate. One dish even came out on a ceramic white platter brimming with fuchsia rose petals. At any moment, I felt as if the graceful waitress would start spewing Haikus.
Woori-ga strikes me as the kind of place you would take your girlfriends or your family. It’s not a ‘manly’ dining experience, but, if you are in the mood to be have royal Korean food in a poetic setting then Woori-ga is definetly worth a try.93-14 Samdo Building Cheongdam Dong 02-3442-2288


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