The seafood soondubu at GIUK is worth the trouble of chasing the last drops of broth around the bottom of the bowl. It is red, hot and generously stocked with silken tofu, shrimp, clams, egg and vegetables. Beneath the chili heat are the sweetness of shellfish and the deep, earthy taste of mushrooms. I kept reaching for the spoon.
GIUK opened this week on West 24th Street, in the Flatiron District. Its name comes from gieok, the Korean word for memory, and its owner, Matae Lee, and executive chef, Austin Changki Jo, describe the cooking as an expression of lives spent between Korea and America. Jo grew up around his family’s Korean restaurant in Nashville. These are useful biographical details, although dinner makes a better introduction to what he is doing than the restaurant’s origin story.
Consider the Earthy Doenjang Shiitake Pasta, a dish I would happily return for tomorrow. The noodles have a proper bite, firm enough to push back against the teeth. Shiitakes give the sauce a meaty richness; doenjang, the fermented soybean paste, brings salt and funk. Each forkful seems to release another surge of mushroom flavor. It is intensely savory, a little unruly and exceptionally good.
The Citrus Velvet Shrimp are nearly as successful. The jumbo shrimp wear a crisp coating beneath a glossy lemon-cream glaze, with sweetness, tang and a faint peppery bite. There is some risk of sogginess whenever fried seafood meets a creamy sauce. Here the crust held its own. I would have ordered more.
Two cocktails made a convincing case for lingering. The Sujeonggwa, made with cinnamon-infused bourbon, rye, date-and-ginger syrup and bitters, is GIUK’s variation on an Old Fashioned. Thick with warming spice and sweetness, it is almost substantial enough to count as another course. The Yuzu Spritz is much easier company: prosecco, soda, elderflower and yuzu, bright and citrusy, a drink that disappears faster than you expect.
The beverage director, Eunah “Chloe” Jeong, also offers a Korean Pear Mule and a Dirty Bong Bong, a combination of rums, grape juice, coconut jelly, mint and lime. I didn’t try those, though they give a fair idea of the bar’s playful range.
The room is dim and comfortable, with lighting flattering enough to make everyone at dinner look a little more interesting. The restaurant’s designer, Claire Soojin Kim, has used light oak and a wall treatment of deep-blue strokes and gold by Aerosyn-Lex Meštrović. The room was loud on the night I visited, but the din belonged to happy diners and busy tables. I never wanted to leave because of it.
There is plenty left on the menu to explore: chilled buckwheat noodles with toasted perilla oil, corn ribs with citrus-wasabi-perilla mayonnaise and braised short ribs over burdock risotto. At lunch the restaurant offers bibimbap and versions of the soondubu stew. The menu sent after the visit was still subject to final pricing, so it is too early to judge the value.
What I can judge is the food I ate. The shrimp were crisp, the mushroom pasta had an almost absurd depth of flavor, and the soondubu was rich enough to make me forget the conversation for a while. The last thing I remember doing at GIUK is tilting my spoon for another mouthful of broth.
GIUK · 41 West 24th Street, Flatiron · giuknyc.com
New York Hours attended an invited preview dinner.
