Mosu - Seoul
All tables on the ground floor have a good view of the open kitchen
Rating: 18/20
Where: Seoul, South Korea
When: Dinner for 2 on 17 January 2023
Cost: Tasting menu 320000 KRW, Wine pairing 170000-240000 KRW
Accolades: 3 Michelin Stars
Why: Modern “Californian” cuisine with Korean ingredients, many excellent and innovative dishes
Mosu is South Korea's latest three-star Michelin restaurant. It is located north of Seoul's Han River in a residential neighborhood. In fact, the restaurant is housed in a former high-end personal residence that has been converted to showcase an open kitchen and dining rooms on at least two levels. The rooftop garden was predictably closed in sub-freezing temperatures in January.
Visiting Mosu was a bit of a home-coming for us. After stints at several Californian high-end restaurants such as the French Laundry, chef Sung Ahn opened his first restaurant, also called Mosu, in San Francisco's Fillmore district. We visited it in 2016 just after it earned its first Michelin star. Citing the high cost of running a fine-dining restaurant in San Francisco, the chef left the US in 2017, and reopened Mosu in Seoul, where it climbed the Michelin ranks until it finally earned a third star in 2022. Considering the large, airy, modern space occupied by the restaurant in Seoul, it's clear than having a similar operation in San Francisco would have been prohibitively expensive. And Mosu's old SF location with its awkward layout on two small levels would have made it hard to offer a truly first-class dining experience.
Approaching the building, large windows full of warm light and a view into its open kitchen welcomed the guests. Up a flight of stairs, we were seated on the first floor, with good views of the kitchen. The room featured high ceilings and a very modern interior with lots of wood; no tablecloths here. And only very mild associations with the house from the movie Parasite.
The dinner was tasting menu only, so there were no choices to be made on the food front. For drinks, there were two wine pairings, featuring either five or seven glasses. The two added glasses in the longer pairing were a red wine for the main course and a dessert wine. I thought that the wines were all really good, and of a higher quality than seen in most wine pairings (for example there was a Dom Perignon early on). The white Burgundy in particular was a brilliant match for its paired dish. Overall not a cheap pairing, but definitely worth getting.
Our welcome drink was a shot glass containing a wonderful, sweet, light kombucha made from green tangerine and honey 19. After that, we were served a sequence of small bites. First, a dish that looked like a piece of sushi, but was actually potato salad topped with white shrimp and wrapped in seaweed. The “salad” felt like flavored mashed potatoes, but was quite tasty and went well with the sweet shrimp and the very crunchy seaweed 18.
A little tart made from doraji (bellflower root) came next. The doraji came in several forms, fermented, creamed, and so on. It had a lovely taste reminiscent of radish, and with the buttery filling and a nice crunch, this was another winner 19.
Deceptively simpler was a vegetable skewer made with grilled carrots, tomatoes and eggplant; it was topped with olive oil. The result was definitely vegetably, and exhibited interesting textures that were almost leathery (in a good way). The dish went particularly well with the second champagne in the wine pairing 17.
Hanu beef (a Korean breed) was served thinly sliced over a tarte made with Korean beetroot and creme fraiche. Good, but it had maybe a tad too much creme fraiche, and the dish had somewhat muted flavors, with the beef not particularly noticeable. The tarte at the bottom was great, however 17.
The pescatarian replacement beat the beef tarte hands down. It was also a tarte filled with creme fraiche, but contained red snapper and was topped by a generous amount of caviar. The result was magnificent: the tarte had a beautiful crunch, and the filling was salty, creamy, fishy goodness. The closest comparable dish I can think of is the French Laundry’s famed salmon cornet. I've seen that cornet imitated many times, but the copies always fall short of the original's perfect balance of creaminess, crunch and fishiness. Well, until today - this appetizer was as good as if not better than the French Laundry’s signature appetizer 19+.
Next up, a taco made from yuba, filled with abalone, a shiso leaf and gamtae seaweed. The taco shell was extremely thin, but still had a great crunch - this dish must have been assembled right before it was served. The abalone was very tender, it was hard to tell that it was abalone - very good though. After eating the taco, I felt that adding more lime juice would have brightened up the dish, but that's really entirely my fault (since a lime was right on the plate) 17.
Sesame matcha tofu looked like a little dumpling, and was filled with uni and topped with a bit of wasabi. Dashi surrounded the tofu, completing a very pretty presentation. The sesame tofu itself had the normal tofu texture (not at all like the one we had the previous night), but tasted a bit bitter thanks to the addition of the matcha. Not my favorite. But the uni and dashi were wonderful together, I could have eaten several bowlfuls of just these two 17.
The next dish was not on the menu. A scoop of sourdough ice cream (sic!) was served with toasted quinoa, olive oil and vinegar. Welcome to Mosu's playful version of a bread course! Not only was it novel, but it was also delicious. The ice cream was lovely, although in my opinion one needed a bit of an imagination to detect the sourdough flavor. The sweet vinegar and perfectly crunchy quinoa rounded out the dish. Yum, my favorite among several recently seen dishes that used “bread” as an ingredient (in Italy and Switzerland) 18.
Back to the regular tasting menu, we had tilefish served in a brassica sauce made from red and yellow mustard, turnip and kale. The fish itself was a bit bland, very delicate and a tad oily, but otherwise perfectly cooked. The fish’s subtle flavor made it a perfect foil for the amazing sauce that was not only pretty, but also brightened by acidity and melding several vegetably flavors. Some brassicas underneath the fish were a great complement in terms of texture and taste. This dish was already good by itself, but what made it truly amazing was the paired wine, a white Burgundy. Both food and wine were elevated by each other's presence, bringing out more flavor nuances in each - something rarely seen in a pairing. Kudos to the sommelier 19.
Slices of mackerel had a crispy skin, but were otherwise essentially raw. They were served with nuruk yeast powder, a sauce of fermented bean sprouts and olive oil, and sat on top of some radishes and herbs. The fish was wonderfully fatty, but I thought that the sauce was missing something - it was nice, but maybe too sweet and/or too earthy? I wonder if some acidity would have brightened the dish up. Not a course, but it had more potential 17.
Next, a slice of burdock tarte tartin was served with a burdock skin juice. The tarte was made entirely from burdock (no apples here), but it still had a sweet, caramelized texture. The skin juice was pretty light in flavor, so it was hard to determine how much it really contributed to the overall dish. I liked this dish for its inventiveness - it's kind of a vegetable dessert -, but it paled in comparison to a true tarte tartin. Maybe it was missing its traditional scoop of ice cream? 17
Our next course was hidden from sight by generous shavings of French black truffles. They covered a dish made of acorn noodles and chamnamul (a Korean green). Perfectly cooked noodles and a buttery (but not too rich) sauce bursting with mushroom and truffle flavors. Another winner 19.
Sadly, it was already time for the final savory course: Korean beef served with black olives, early Korean spring greens, and a dollop of bokbunja (Korean blackberry) sauce. This was a pretty heavy dish overall, mainly due to the fatty beef. The cut I received was fine, but a bit too chewy for my taste. The greens on top of the beef were a perfect addition and very flavorful. I didn't care too much for the berry sauce, it felt too sweet for this dish 18.
The pescatarian alternative was lobster served with paprika, sesame leaves and a foam made of lobster and shrimp. The lobster was good, the foam a bit sweet but also very nice, but I liked the vegetables the best 18.
To close out the dinner we received a series of small desserts, the first one of which might be considered a palate cleanser. A Jasmine tea sorbet was more fruity than tea flavored, but otherwise delicious 19.
A lovely Hibiscus kombucha was the counterpoint to the green kombucha we had at the beginning of the dinner - green means go, red means stop? 17
Next, a “lemon rice cake”. The outermost rind of a lemon was filled with a spongy rice cake, the result looking almost like a lemon wedge. The rice cake part of this dish didn't taste of much, but the lemon peel was very fragrant and flavorful. A+ for inventiveness, but taste-wise this was a bit lackluster 16.
A choux pastry was made with kombu and for good measure filled with a kombu cream. Oddly, the result (for better or worse) didn't taste much of seaweed at all. The pastry's thin outside shell was wonderfully crunchy, but I felt there was too little of the shell compared to the abundant creamy filling 16.
For our next dish, we saw how the term “caramelized onions” might be translated into a dessert. Before reading on, please ponder all the terrible ways in which this idea could go very, very wrong. Thankfully not so at Mosu. Caramel ice cream was dusted with burnt scallion powder and served over an onion crumble. And against all odds, this dessert actually worked. The ice cream was wonderful, and the caramelized onion taste was at exactly the right level to be prominent without overwhelming the dish. I'm in awe of the kitchen for pulling this off - part of this rating is rewarding their chutzpah 19+.
Our final bite for a evening was a traditional Korean pastry, a yakgwa. It was dense and sweet, but I have really no idea how it compares to “normal” yakgwas 17.
Overall: In some sense, this dinner owed more to California than to Korea. Barely any of the dishes could be considered Korean staples; instead they were novel, produce and technique driven creations that are a mainstay of Californian fine-dining restaurants. But the cuisine thankfully still maintained a strong sense of place: Korean ingredients abounded and were found in essentially every dish. There was no mistaking where we were - this dinner could not have been served anywhere else in the world. Taste-wise, there were many outstanding dishes. But even the less successful ones still impressed me by trying something new. Where many three-star restaurants can be seen to play it safe and just serve their biggest hits, Mosu continues to innovate. It will be fun to see where that journey leads 18.
