Since his return to Seoul, Chef Kwon has made a strong commitment to globalize Korean cuisine. Apart from appearing on many different TV shows, he also opened a number of restaurants in Seoul, with Lab XXIV being his flagship restaurant. At Lab XXIV, expect a modern European cuisine with Korean influence in a romantic fine dining setting.
I am not sure what happened to our time management (or lack of it!). Again we arrived earlier than expected so we decided to spend some time taking pictures outside this lovely church-like architecture where Lab XXIV is housed.
There are only 6 tables in this fine dining restaurant with the tables generously spaced.
Soon after we placed our orders, we were offered a trio of nibbles as our amuse bouche. First up was a small glass of corn foam with a hint of Moroccan spices and that was accompanied by a ricotta cheese with ham and caramelized fig.
Finally, a strawberry juice with ginger foam (3.5/10).
I thought we will be playing monopoly in between dishes here but no, these are the cue cards handed out by the staff that describe each and every dish in greater details. Good idea!
Our first starter of the night was a pan seared scallop with a creamy parmesan polenta, crispy ginger and douenjang bisque foam. I was quite amazed with the flashy presentation.
But less impressed with the dish itself. These were only two very thin slices of scallops. I got to hand it to the chefs - how do they pan-sear such small scallops? This was a little embarrassing (2.5/10).
Tomato salad was served with a basil pesto, black sesame tuile, wild rocket and white balsamic sorbet. Pieces of tomatoes sprinkled with basil pesto and black sesame tuile were neatly placed inside a "broken sphere" made with frozen white balsamic sorbet before laying on a bed of crisp wild rocket leaves.
Chef Kwon himself came along and told us to first break the frozen balsamic sorbet into pieces and mix them well with tomato salad.
I was impressed with the design of this dish but the execution has let it down. The white balsamic was particularly overpowering which kind of ruined this well-designed dish (4/10).
The creamy truffle soup with ricotta espuma, crispy enoki mushroom and shaved cauliflower tasted so much better (5.5/10).
A small dish of smoked cream pasta with garlic chip, white cabbage kimchi and spaghettini was next and it was a good one. The pasta was al dente and the sauce solid and flavorful. I thought the white cabbage kimchi could be a little more spicy in order to give the dish a stronger edge (6/10).
Our main course was finally ready to be served and it was a grilled beef rib-eye that was beautifully presented with king trumpet mushroom, assorted vegetables and caramelized cipollini croquette in a Madeira wine jus (4/10).
We had another interpretation of the previous dish, but this one with premium Hanwoo beef and thought the texture of the meat was evidently more tender and flavorful (5.5/10).
A little petite fours was served before we moved onto our dessert.
For those of you who are familiar with The Krug Room and the Mandarin Grill in Hong Kong, you should be no stranger to this sort of table side dessert.
The server brought along a huge circular plate and started "drawing" all kinds of lovely patterns on top with rose-flavored ice-cream, strawberry puree and so on. The result was a beautiful piece of artwork right in front of our eyes. And this artwork is edible too!
Aside from Pierre Gagnaire à Séoul, Elbon the Table and Lab XXIV remain the only two viable options when it comes to great western food in Seoul. But I am hoping the list would grow by the time we visit Seoul next time.
Food Rating: 5.4/10
Price: ₩₩₩
Address: 100-14 ChungDam Dong, GangNam Gu, Seoul, South Korea
Closest Metro Station: Apjujeong
Tel: +82 2511-4523
Website: LinkClosest Metro Station: Apjujeong
Tel: +82 2511-4523
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