Mingles - Seoul
A modern and unfussy dining room
Rating: 17/20
Where: Seoul, South Korea
When: Dinner for 2 on 7 May 2025
Cost per Person: Tasting menu 350000 KRW, Wine pairing 180000-300000 KRW
Accolades: 3 Michelin Stars, #44 on 50 Best Restaurants list (2024)
Why: Elevated interpretations of Korean cuisine with some outstanding dishes
Seoul's “Mingles” recently became the latest (and currently only) South Korean restaurant to hold three Michelin stars. It is located on a nondescript street corner in the city's Gangnam district, on the second floor of an office building. Here, chef Mingoo Kang prepares a modern, elevated take on Korean cuisine. Whereas Mosu (the last restaurant to get three stars in the city) provided what one might call Californian cuisine with Korean ingredients, Mingles sticks more to the traditions, but reinterprets them at a fine-dining level. That sounded like the perfect excuse for us to visit spring-time Seoul.
The restaurant's dining room is broken into several interconnected spaces, and the ambiance is casual. There are simple wooden tables and chairs, no white table cloths, and in fact nothing overly fancy. There was just a single tasting menu, but it could be adjusted according to dietary preferences (complete with an updated printed menu provided at the beginning of the dinner). We came here just before the customary three-star price bump, and paid 350,000 KRW for a menu that would be 400,000 KRW starting in June. There were also two optional dishes that could be added to the meal: an abalone jerky for 35000 KRW and a noodle dish for 25000 KRW. We ordered one of each to share, and it turned out to be a totally manageable amount of food overall.
Our beverage options included a four-glass wine pairing for 180,000 KRW, a Korean spirits pairing for 200,000 KRW, and a “signature” pairing of seven wines and two Korean spirits for 300,000 KRW. I chose the latter, and with a couple of exceptions, the wines were pretty good. For the first glass, a champagne, it was possible to upgrade to any of the three champagnes available by the glass, simply for the price difference of the per-glass price.
That glass of champagne then accompanied the first three servings of food. The first course consisted of three little bites. To start, a mugwort rice cake that contained some pine nuts. The nuts added a soft crunch to a dish that otherwise would have had the consistency of mochi. It had savory, earthy flavors 16. A green asparagus soup was served chilled with pieces of asparagus, potato chips and uni (sea urchin). The soup had a velvety consistency, the chips added a little bit of crunch and the flavor of the soup was so light that the uni was still noticeable even when everything was eaten together 16. Finally, an apple mango from Jeju island was served with finger limes and Korean beef. A riff on the classic Italian combination of prosciutto and melon, maybe. The mango was very sweet and delicious. The beef had a nice strong flavor, holding its own against the intense mango 17. The pescatarian version of this dish replaced the beef with caviar. Flavorwise, the caviar was much weaker than the beef, and disappeared a bit in the dish - the sour finger limes were actually more noticeable. Still, it’s hard to complain, since the mango just by itself would already have been a great appetizer 17.
Next, we were served two bites of seafood. A surf clam came with a traditional Korean spicy sauce called gochujang. The clam tasted fresh and had a tender texture. The sauce was nicely spicy 17. A slice of flounder sashimi was topped with marinated, flavored caviar and dried perilla leaves. The caviar tasted somewhat garlicky and had a very soft consistency - no popping roe here. The fish managed to feel creamy while also being quite chewy. Not bad, but a small step down from the lovely clam 16.
And so we came to the last serving of appetizers. A breaded and fried piece of red mullet was wrapped in crunchy green seaweed. The fish was fried perfectly and even felt delicate thanks to the very light batter 17. Next to the red mullet was a little tartlet that was filled with hanwoo beef tartare, smoked eel and gochujang, and topped with shredded egg yolk. The tartlet had a light crunch, with the beef not really standing out among the other flavors. There was a lingering spicy aftertaste 17. The pescatarian alternative was slightly better: a tartlet filled with tofu, spinach and eel that was topped with shredded truffles. Crunchy and smoky, the flavors of the ingredients seamlessly blended together. In fact, they went together so well that it might have been hard to guess what they were based on taste alone 17.
The next course also came as a presentation of different bites - three in this case. Only the fact that the wine pairing had progressed to its second glass was a sign that we were slowly moving on from appetizers. First, we tried a piece of turnip that had been dusted with shrimp powder. The turnip was nicely juicy, but it was impossible to taste the shrimp 16. A warm pancake made with angelica had a welcome herbal taste 17. Lastly, a tarte had a rice cake at the bottom, topped first with a layer of shrimp and aioli, and then with slices of zucchini and turnips. The shrimp was quite good and the rice cake added a bit of a crunch, but overall the flavors of this dish were pretty light 16.
A “mingling pot” was a hot anchovy broth that contained three different kinds of dumplings: a fish ball, a stuffed morel mushroom and cabbage-leaf-wrapped hanwoo beef. In addition, the bowl contained some abalone, sea cucumber, peas and angelica. The most impressive part of this dish was the thick and extremely flavorful broth. But its contents were also great, and very varied. The fish ball was bursting with flavor, the peas were fresh, the angelica bitter, the abalone soft, and the morels and beef nice as well. Conceptually, this might be considered a “simple” dish, but clearly lots of work had gone into its preparation - as evidenced by the huge display of ingredients that was placed on our table. The perfect winter-time dish, but also one that I'd also happily eat any time of the year 18.
A filet of butterfish from Jeju island was topped with a rice crumble and slices of pressed caviar. Next to it were two pieces of Korean mint and a rice porridge prepared with dried fish and spicy peppers. The porridge had a silky consistency - no rice grains in evidence here - so that the dish looked like a traditional French preparation of fish and beurre blanc. The buttery fish was lovely, but felt a bit dry by itself. However, it went nicely with the lightly spicy rice porridge. The mint turned out to also be bit spicy. It was an unexpected addition to the dish - not bad, but the fish would probably have been fine without it. Overall, the dish had a good balance of the different components 17. The paired Californian Chardonnay was a particularly good match for the fish thanks to its buttery notes.
The next dish was also based on rice: a risotto seasoned with sesame oil. It was topped with slices of king crab, a bit of caviar and strands of egg omelet. The risotto was cooked slightly beyond al dente, but still retained a bit of its bite. The sesame oil made this dish quite distinctive, and also assured that no one would mistake it for being Italian. The tender crab was lovely, with a noticeable flavor and the caviar added some saltiness that further enhanced the taste of the dish - lovely. The egg added some texture 18.
A chicken “roulade” was essentially a chicken/mushroom sausage covered with crunchy pieces of chicken skin. Next to it was a zucchini flower stuffed with root vegetables, pickled perilla and a black vinegar sauce. The chicken was juicy and its skin crunchy but not too dry - a nice preparation. The pickles were lovely with lots of flavor and some crunch. The zucchini flower was only lightly fried, and served merely lukewarm 17.
The main savory course had two cuts of Korean hanwoo beef: a tenderloin and a ribeye. On separate plates were a pork blood sausage and some white Napa cabbage kimchi. The tenderloin was very tender, but could have been served a bit warmer - I wonder whether the metal serving plate drained heat faster than a ceramic plate would have. The ribeye was fattier and less tender than the tenderloin, but also had much more flavor. It was reminiscent of Korean galbi seasoning. A small rice cake next to the ribeye had a curiously bitter herbal topping. The blood sausage was also flavorful, but with a taste profile that was less Korean than the ribeye. Finally, the kimchi was fresh and acidic and a nice addition for the beef 17. The pescatarian replacement dish kept the kimchi, but was otherwise entirely different. A langoustine covered with puffed rice sat next to a pan-fried scallop that rested on a deep-fried yam. A shrimp head sauce was next to both. The langoustine was juicy, and - thanks to its coating - very crunchy. The scallop and yam had light flavors, but that was more than made up by the intense sauce. Very tasty, and maybe even a tiny bit better than the beef 17.
Now it was time for the two optional dishes that we had ordered. The abalone jerky had been marinated in whiskey and honey. Next to it was something unusual: a brie cheese topped with anchovies and peanuts. In a separate bowl were some tangerine wedges - more on those in a second. The abalone was chewy and somehow had the texture of smoked abalone without being smoky at all (16 by itself). The brie/anchovy combo was a bit weird and salty (14). And the citrus fruit had the most unusual texture. Maybe they had been freeze dried? Practically all of the juice was gone, but the result was very sweet and had a curiously airy texture that I'd never seen before. Tasty and intriguing (16). Worth a try if you like jerky and abalone 16.
The second optional dish featured noodles in a broth topped with a deep-fried hairtail fish. On the side were some kimchi, cucumber kimchi as well as a soy-sauce-based “special sauce”. The breaded fish was lovely and very flavorful. The noodles were relatively bland in comparison, but adding the spicy special sauce helped with that - I wish that there had been more of it, though. Except for the amazing fish, an ostensibly simple dish 16.
A very unusual version of “bibimbap” came next in the form of our first dessert. Sticky rice pudding was topped with a sticky rice ice cream, sesame oil and a drop of soy sauce (I think). The result looked either like an egg or an eye, depending on your level of paranoia. The rice preparations were wonderful: crunchy at the bottom, and a lovely ice cream on top. The sesame oil was an ok addition, providing only a little, but not too much, flavor. The little black drops that were added to the dish tableside packed a salt and umami flavor punch that elevated the dish considerably. Very nice 18.
For the following dessert course, we had two choices, so naturally, we tried both between the two of us. The first option featured strawberries, served raw and as a jelly, together with mint chips and a bean ice cream. Crunchy, fruity and sweet 17.
The other dessert was one of the restaurant’s signature dishes. A soy bean paste, marinated pecans and a vanilla ice cream where served on a crème brûlée crisp. The result was crunchy thanks to the puffed rice and the sugar layer and nutty from the pecans and pumpkin seeds. Add some lovely ice cream, and you had a winner 18.
Three petit fours were accompanied by our choice of coffee, tea or sunchoke tea. (The latter was not bad, but probably won't enter my drink-of-choice rotation.) A little donut was a sticky, slightly sweet mochi 15. Puffed rice was crunchy and barely sweet with a bit of a matcha flavor. Incidentally, it felt a bit stale 13. Finally, a cookie sandwich with jujube was sweet and buttery with hints of other hard-to-place flavors 14.
Overall: A delightful meal, presenting an elevated version of Korean cuisine. The dishes felt original, citing known preparations without ever directly replicating them. Everything seemed quite assured and well executed, and several dishes were clearly on a three-star level. My main nitpick would be that some of the earlier courses could have used more flavor. But that might be my Western culinary bias speaking. With that caveat, I definitely preferred Mingles over New York's Jungsik, but would rate Mosu a tiny bit higher. Either is definitely worth a stop in Seoul, though 17.
