7th door is a Korean fine dining restaurant in Cheongdam-dong. It made this year’s Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list. Honestly, other places seem to get more attention these days.. which is exactly why I decided this was the moment to finally try 7th door.
The entrance
It’s on the fourth floor, and there are two different lifts you can take, so you have to look carefully before you get in. One of them only goes up to the third floor..
The open kitchen
You get a good view of the prep work. Chef Kim Daechun came out and set things up himself, and seeing him check the quality in person now that he’s famous was reassuring.
The menu
Inside it looks like this..
Everything is explained nicely. There’s only the one course, though, so there isn’t all that much to explain.
The fermented ingredients for today
These are what they use, apparently. A four-year-old soy sauce, was it? You really get the sense that they take fermentation seriously.
Today’s menu
If I don’t photograph it I can’t remember any of it these days..
A glass of today’s champagne
A pretty good champagne.. the wine list here is solid.
Porridge
The first starter came out Korean-style, and it’s good. It has a bit of a Narisawa feel to it, I think.
Amuse-bouche of fermentation and ripening
Five kinds come out. I couldn’t memorise them all, but the bugak (Korean fried crisps) and the arancini were, as you’d expect, exactly right for a single bite. They’re trying all sorts of things within the range of Korean food.
Today’s fish
The flavour of the jang went really well with the aged raw fish. Clean-tasting.
Bread
Apparently it’s bread risen with nuruk, the fermentation starter they make in-house. Maybe the temperature was right as well, because the bread tasted great.
Chef Kim Daechun
He was there the whole time.
Slow-roasted lobster over charcoal with citrus cheong sauce
The charcoal aroma was strong, it was grilled beautifully, and the citrus sauce suited it well. These upmarket restaurants seem to be raising their prices a bit lately and putting good ingredients to work in return. Lobster is a common enough ingredient, but when it’s cooked with this much care the satisfaction is high.
Picking a knife
There are lots of types.. honestly, I can’t really tell the difference..
Grilled tilefish with doenjang beurre blanc sauce
It’s tilefish with its skin fried and laid on top, but the flesh was falling apart and the skin was a bit greasy. The jangajji pickles were distinctive and tasty, though.
1++ Korean beef with barley salad
It’s galbijjim, so.. it’s that flavour you get at holiday meals. Cooked nice and tender.
The surprise arrival of the Daechun Kim laver
I thought the course was over, and then a whole spread suddenly landed on the table. A fun bit of staging.
Piling caviar on top of the laver..
They use good ingredients generously. Load that much caviar on and there’s definitely real depth to it.
Wild chive noodles
The broth is good. The jangajji was excellent again too. Having noodles built into the course reminds me a little of Kwonsooksoo..
Fraisier with lemon dill ice cream
A simple, tasty dessert.
Jerusalem artichoke tea
There was coffee too, but I went with tea..
Petits fours
I ate very well. I don’t eat as much as I used to these days, so I was glad the portions weren’t a burden. I feel like this visit helped me understand a bit of what Korean fine dining is going for. That said, I got the feeling it lands with more impact on foreign visitors than on Koreans, who run into fermented food all the time – and maybe that’s why the proportion of foreign guests was so high.
The larder
There’s a cabinet like this over by the entrance. It looks like there’s plenty of interesting food in there, so I imagine you could try a wider range if you came for dinner.
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