MinglesA dinner that begins with a jar of sauce

Where the flavour under the flavour comes from

Cheongdam-dong, Gangnam, Seoul, South Korea — Korean tasting menu built on three fermented sauces.

Three fermented sauces carry the cooking. Soybeans, water and salt go into clay jars and sit outside in the weather, and the flavour comes half from the beans, half from the walls of the jar and time. The menu follows the season; each dish is there to put those base notes on the plate.

A row of brown jars stands on the terrace outside the window, facing the tables through the glass, and the room itself holds only a few wooden tables set well apart. The sauce is already inside the dishes rather than served beside them, so the meal reads as one line.

Mingoo Kang trained in the United States, Spain, France and the Bahamas before returning to Korea and opening this room in Gangnam. The tables are set well apart, and the windows look into the trees in the courtyard.

Three sauces, one jar

Korean cooking keeps its base in the sauces. Gochujang, doenjang and soy sauce start from the same three things, soybeans, water and salt, put into clay jars to sit, ferment and wait. The beans are only the beginning; the rest is handed to the local climate and the mould that forms on the inside wall of the jar. That is the whole of the recipe, and everything after it is a matter of time.

The restaurant takes that system as its spine: soup, stews, seasoned vegetables, marinades, and even dessert carry some trace of it. On the terrace outside the window a row of brown jars stands facing the dining room through the glass: the same beans, water and salt, still working their way towards the three sauces. They are kept in view rather than stored out of sight.

A room on the second floor

The space is quiet. Walls are finished in beige plaster, the window frames are divided by thin steel bars, tables and chairs are dark wood with deep green cushions, and a crescent-shaped wall light sits in one corner. A second room further in is darker than the first, which leaves the outer room as the brighter half of one continuous space.

There are two menus only, lunch and dinner, each posted on the official site as a downloadable file. Produce follows the season, and the restaurant states that it deals directly with producers around Korea, the vegetables, fruit and seafood all coming out of their hands.