This post was written in 2006. Shop details and prices may have changed since then.
I went with a friend to Il Cipriani, the Italian restaurant in the Shinsegae Department Store main store. I’d heard rumors that it tops the list of Korean Italian restaurants for value for money, so I went to check it out. They say the food is hardly any different from the original restaurant, but maybe because it’s in a department store, the prices are friendlier.
We ordered two of the 40,000-won set menus, and both the taste and the portions were satisfying, and the service was good too.
The bread that came out as a starter.
I was impressed. Who knew you could get bread of this level in Korea? And not at a bakery, but at an Italian restaurant… The sweet potato and garlic that came with it were just so-so, but the rye bread with raspberries on the right was so excellent that I bought a loaf to take home on my way out. It was the most satisfying item of the day ^_^
The salad.
It was decent.
The seafood soup.
Loaded with seafood and wonderfully refreshing. Very satisfied.
The black sesame soup.
Nutty, but ordinary compared to the seafood soup.
King crab pasta in tomato sauce.
A bit of a letdown. The noodles didn’t impress me, and the sauce was ordinary too.
Beef tenderloin cream pasta
The beef wasn’t bad, but it didn’t really go with the cream pasta. I admit I’m a little picky when it comes to pasta…
The main dish, a seafood plate.
so-so
The other main, lamb chops.
Great. Nicely cooked medium-well. A cut above Lamb House, the lamb specialist I visited before… The only thing was that the knife for cutting the meat was as dull as a butter knife. Just a little more attention there would have been nice, which was a pity.
A close-up.
The mango cake that came out for dessert.
The silky smoothness of the mango sent a shiver through my whole body. A dessert that definitely earns a passing grade. The single cookie on the side was tasty too. It felt like a restaurant that really understands how important dessert is in a course meal. A place that gets the basics right ^_^
All in all, I confirmed that it’s a place with outstanding value for money. It did strike me as a little odd that an Italian restaurant would be weak on pasta while the mains, the bread and the dessert were strong, but even so, considering the average Korean Italian place, the pasta wasn’t bad either. It had been a while since I’d had such an enjoyable meal, so I’m giving it a recommendation~