YG Republique (Seoul, SOUTH KOREA) ★★★☆☆

Following our date with O'Shake, we walked over to YG Republique for our early dinner as originally planned. Anyone familiar with K-pop and the Korean show-biz should be no stranger to YG Entertainment, a top notch Korean entertainment group that operates everything from music and concert production, talent agency to clothing line and event management. They are loaded with talents like Big Bang, PSY and 2NE1 just a few of those names under the group's umbrella. It's not really the first time the group dipped into the local restaurant scene but this new joint in Myeongdong is a little different.



The place has a coffee and dessert cafe (3 Birds Coffee and Kitchen).....




......a Korean BBQ house (삼거리푸줏간).....



and a bar restaurant / gastropub (K-Pub), three different concepts all under one roof.




As much as we wanted Korean BBQ on our first night, we opted to pass and promptly headed upstairs to K-Pub for something a little less time consuming. 




The stone brick walls and wire fence kind of give the place a dark-dungeon like feeling.



They're obviously not kidding when they said international cuisine. Despite the small selection on the food menu, it managed to cover a lot of ground including seafood paella (Spanish), smoked meat platter (Italian), pork burger (American), and Don-Bab/chicken burrito (Mexican). 



We got the ball rolling with this fried calamari and shrimp (15,000 won). It was pretty tasty but a bit too much salt for health conscious folks like us.



I know we could do no wrong with the house specialty, beer chicken with grilled vegetables (24,000 won) and it was well worth the 20-minute wait. The roasted whole chicken was one of the most succulent and tender one I've ever had in Seoul but again a little too much salt with the French fries and grilled vegetables slightly ruined the experience.



This place is a definite must for K-pop fans who want to enjoy quality food while watching music videos from YG's top artists. 




Food Rating: 4.5/10

Price: ₩₩₩
Address: 1 Myeongdong 2(i)-ga, Jung-gu, Seoul, South Korea
Closest Metro Station: Myeongdong / Euljiro 1-ga
Tel: +82 02-3789-0125