Worth the hype? Trying out the restaurants of chefs from 'Culinary Class Wars.'

"Auntie Omakase #1" Lee Mi-ryeong on Netflix Korea's cooking survival show "Culinary Class Wars" [NETFLIX KOREA]

 
“Culinary Class Wars” may be over but the hype persists at contestants’ restaurants.
 
Over 110,000 users used the restaurant reservation app CatchTable one day after the finale last week, scrambling to secure a table at the Via Toledo Pasta Bar, run by the show’s winner “Napoli Matfia,” in Yongsan District, central Seoul. It caused the app to shut down for 20 minutes on Thursday morning. 
 

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The app added that the weekly average reservation rate for all the contestants' restaurants spiked by 148 percent since the show's airing.  
 
The Korea JoongAng Daily set out to snag seats at some of these restaurants. From a high-end fine dining establishment to a humble food stall, here’s how we dined at some of the star chefs’ restaurants.  
 
 
Joseph Lidgerwood’s EVETT
 

Joseph Lidgerwood [NETFLIX KOREA]

 
A day after “Culinary Class Wars” aired its finale, one reservation was open for the next two weeks at contestant Joseph Lidgerwood’s EVETT — a 12:30 p.m. midweek lunch slot on Oct. 9.  
 
Lidgerwood, an Australian native, appeared on “Culinary Class Wars” as a White Spoon chef, a group of well-known chefs who contrasted the industry’s underdogs, dubbed Black Spoon. The judges applauded the chef for his refreshing interpretations of Korean dishes. But for the viewers at home, what caught their attention was the aesthetic quality, featuring bursts of colors neatly plated to appear almost like an abstract art piece.  
 

Sorbet topped with ants at EVETT in Gangnam District, southern Seoul [RESTAURANT EVETT]

 
EVETT is located in Gangnam District, southern Seoul, an incredibly competitive area for fine dining. The restaurant opened in late 2018 and garnered a Michelin star in less than a year. Inside a modern and warm interior with an open kitchen, the restaurant has a lively and interactive atmosphere that calls for diners to engage with its food.  
 
For instance, the first course, dubbed “Tree,” had diners pluck their food from a twig. Lidgerwood has a penchant for foraging and discovering new ingredients in Korea, and the idea of giving the diners a similar experience through the way the dish is served effectively translates the joy he feels in the act.  
 

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A more quirky dish was the apple and sansho leaf sorbet topped with frozen ants, also collected by Lidgerwood. The ants contributed a subtle lemongrass aroma to the palate cleanser. For the second dessert, diners were invited to the kitchen, where they roasted and decorated their own marshmallow.  
 
The restaurant also evidently makes an effort to come across as an unpretentious space and largely offers warm hospitality that is unique to EVETT’s staff, particularly its chefs, who come out from the kitchen to serve the main dishes themselves.  
 
Lunch is priced at 150,000 won ($111) while dinner is 280,000 won.  
 
 
Auntie Omakase #1's Andongjib Son Kalguksi
 

"Auntie Omakase #1" Lee Mi-ryeong [NETFLIX KOREA]

 
Judge Anh Sung-jae in “Culinary Class Wars” described finalist “Auntie Omakase #1,” or Lee Mi-ryeong, as having “really good sonmat.”  
 
Sonmat, literally translating to “hand taste,” is a uniquely Korean term used to describe the flavor that only that specific person can produce through their instincts while cooking. The variation can come from a number of things, like the way he or she handles the ingredients or the slight differences in cook time.  
 

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At 10 a.m. on Friday, Lee was present at Andongjib to showcase her sonmat.  
 
A vintage eatery inside Gyeongdong Market in Dongdaemun District, eastern Seoul, the restaurant doesn’t take reservations, unlike her second diner that serves a hansik (traditional Korean food) course.
 
Most of the seats were taken, but there was no line that early in the day. However, a line of about a dozen people began to form as 11 a.m. approached.
 

Andongjib Son Kalguksi in Dongdaemun District, eastern Seoul [LEE JIAN]

 
The menu consists of just four items: guksu (noodles), baechu jeon (cabbage fritters), bibimbap and suyuk (boiled pork slices).  
 
The guksu (8,000 won), a dish that she cooked on the show as the food that best represented her, is humble and traditional. The noodles are soft and have an earthy flavor, which comes from the unusual addition of beans to the flour mix. Diners are encouraged to add minced raw garlic, soy sauce with diced onions and spicy pepper slices to taste.  
 
The noodles aren’t too umami-forward or special in any way, but they feel nostalgic. The experience of being underground in a decades-old market, next to raw fish and stinky jeotgal (salted seafood) stalls and slurping a warm bowl of noodles next to strangers also feels a bit like you’ve traveled back in time.  
 
The restaurant's unexpected star is its baechu, or cabbage. The pile of cabbage from the corner of Andongjib’s open kitchen has multiple uses: getting thrown into a guksu broth, fried into a fritter, fermented for kimchi or just torn apart and served raw as banchan (side dish).
 
The fritter, priced at 8,000 won, is made with just batter and baechu but achieves a perfect balance of soft and crispy textures, with the piece of cabbage still having a nice crunch inside.  
 
The millet rice, called gijang bap, has a pleasant stickiness and chewiness, and with the crispy raw cabbage and a dab of doenjang (soybean paste), it makes for a delicious ssam (Korean wrap).  
 
Lee, on Friday, was sporting a white hanbok (traditional Korean dress) while zooming back and forth in the kitchen with utmost professionalism. If she was at all happy with her newfound fame, she didn’t show it. She paid no heed to the cameras flashing at her, completely focused on her job. Neither friendly nor unfriendly, she quickly took orders and bluntly shouted them back to her staff behind the plumes of smoke from a pot of noodles she was cooking.  
 
Her leadership at the restaurant called for order in the bustling marketplace. Everyone got their food within a few minutes of sitting down, and those in the queue were in a timely manner. Some customers asked if they could take a picture with her, and only then did she flash a warm smile.  
 

BY LEE JIAN [lee.jian@joongang.co.kr]