Eatanic Garden*

Taking a pre-first child fine dining trip to Seoul. We booked 3 different * restaurants, the third of which was Eatanic Garden. The other two were Soseoul Hannam and GiwaKang.

From the Michelin Guide:

As the name suggests, the space evokes a beautiful urban garden. The window seats are prized for the commanding views of the cityscape from the 36th floor of the Josun Palace Hotel. There is no menu here; instead, diners receive a series of illustrated cards depicting the main seasonal element of each beautifully executed dish. The delightful staff are there to guide them along and explain each dish in more detail. Traditional Korean dishes are given a creative twist, which demonstrates the restaurant’s mastery of contemporary culinary techniques.

As my wife is pregnant, we opted for the 5 non-alcoholic wine pairing instead of any alcohol pairing.

Now, onto the course itself. The purpose of this trip to Korea was to experience elevated Korean cuisine.

Actually, this restaurant is the real reason why we came to Korea. We came to Eatanic Garden in April of 2024 and had a life changing meal here. Since then, Chef Son has gained celebrity status and this restaurant has become almost impossible to book. We tried on the day that they opened their reservations and it was fully booked in, I kid you not, less than 2 seconds. However, as we were staying at the Josun Palace, the concierge was able to kindly help us get a reservation on our last night at the hotel, so we jumped at the opportunity. I will try to keep this review strictly to this meal, while making some comments at the end comparing the Spring 2026 to Spring 2024 menus.

That being said, the food at Eatanic Garden was incredible. I don’t know if this is marketing or reality, but the concept behind this restaurant is that a member of the team will select one nostalgic ingredient used in Korean cuisine. The chef then uses that ingredient to reimagine traditional Korean dishes in a contemporary fine dining context.

This review is going to be short because everything was amazing. There was storytelling from the staff in the explanation cards, the actual verbal explanation from the waitstaff, and through the dishes themselves. What stood out in this meal was that each dish was distinctly a Korean dish, but truly elevated in new and unexpected ways. Only the dish in picture 8, tilefish that sits atop clams and a side of large asparagus, gave the impression of a French dish, and even that was cooked with Korean flavours that showed the best of their highlight ingredient: the Korean Jeju lemon. The samgyetang, arguably their signature dish, is an example of how they creatively recreated a traditional comfort food by deconstructing what is supposed to be a soup dish into a “bowl” made from chicken skin and stuffed with ingredients of a traditional samgyetang. The soup then comes as a side in a denser and more flavourful version of the original dish. The main beef dish was a bulgogi sliced impossibly thin and dressed with just a touch of bulgogi sauce. When I put this into my mouth, I could taste the slight char on the beef and the strong, but not overpowering, flavour of bulgogi. A dish that could have been just another Hanwoo beef dish was instead a masterful display of skill and creativity that takes the humble bulgogi and transforms it into a powerhouse dish in a fine dining restaurant. It was so good that I ate it thin slice by thin slice, savouring each bite. Our sommelier was also a master at pairing. I won’t go through each drink, but he was able to explain why he chose each one and what we should look out for as we were eating and drinking. As for the desert, I would say the ice cream at GiwaKang was better by far, but the mugwort cake here is to die for.

We paid a total of W900,000, including the non-alcoholic pairing.

Verdict: This meal is Korean cuisine: elevated. The meal takes you from dish to dish through Korean culinary culture and tradition. The flavours build up and crescendo from an already hard hitting set of appetisers to the main dishes in the samgyetang and the bulgogi. Eatanic Garden deserves all its hype and as hard as it is to book now, I can only imagine it to get even more popular. This was definitely our favourite meal of the three and chef Son deserves his flowers. Oops, I thought the review would be short but it ended up not to be because the food was so good. We would come back if we can ever get reservations.

Side note: This meal was excellent in and of itself, but our meal in 2024 was even better. In particular, the samgyetang in 2024 was based on a tomato kimchi and was heavenly. The beef dish in 2026, however, was better than 2024.

Food: 9.5/10

Service: 10/10