[michelin 2 star] alla prima, the japanese italian restaurant by owner chef jin-hyuk kim

alla prima

Owner chef: Jin-Hyuk Kim

Address: 1F, 13, Hakdong-ro 17-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea

Phone number: +82-2-511-2555

Category: Innovative (Japanese Italian)

Business hours: Monday ~ Saturday

Lunch 12:00~14:30, Dinner 18:00~22:00

Price: Lunch 77,000 Won (approx. 65$, VAT included)

Dinner 178,000 Won (approx. 155$, VAT included)

 

Michelin 2 star restaurant by owner chef Jin-Hyuk Kim.

Focused on adventurous course cooking various seafood creatively.

You can make a reservation through a phone call only. +82-2-511-2555

(For checking the reservation,

The restaurant make a call to you one day before your reservation date.

If you don't receive this phone call from restaurant,

The reservation will be canceled.)

alla prima is located at an alley near the non-hyeon station

You can find easily here because this restaurant is located at fist floor.

alla prima has a counter seat near the entrance.

Normally, counter seat has a benefit can see a process of cooking.

This time, we chosen table seat.

Because table seat is better than counter seat to talk with my partner, anyway.

 

 

For guest want to see a process of cooking course,

I recommend counter seat.

For guest place more importance on talking with your partner,

I recommend table seat.

This is the menu.

In Front side, They wrote down a country of origin of ingredient.

 

In back side, They wrote down a ingredient they used in the each dish.

I think this way is also the method to increase expectations,

Lead to us have a curious like 'how do they utilize these ingredient'

 

We have to back to work later,

So we couldn't order wine pairing,

Instead we ordered glass of french sparkling wine each of us.

Cremant D'alsace, Arthur Metz.

The cremant made in alsace.

Balance of wine was good,

Acidity was fit,

Only bubbles were not good enough.

(That's a limit of Cremant...)

Anyway it was a good cremant Considering it's a 20 dollars.

Antipasto

 

Mix canola, kumquat, blowfish testis,

And covered smoothly by blowfish sashimi

and sprinkle botargo.

I never experience before italian cuising use sashimi.

This is the point I understand why other guests called here japanese italian.

Texture of sashimi was chewy and fresh,

canola and kumquat remove fishy taste very well,

Blowfish testis are also nutty and has deep flavor.

 

Well balanced, tasty dish.

 

Zuppa

40 kinds vegetable salad with emmental cheese soup boiled 10 hours.

You can see the paper next to the dish.

 

That's the paper are written

what vegetables are used in this dish.

But I don't know the taste each vegetables lol

The texture of salad was fresh,

Cheese soup are not salty and not oily, delicious.

Well matched with salad.

Emmental cheese soup's own taste was also great.

 

Well-made Dish for me.

 

Secondo piatto 

(I know that this is not a secondo,

But I called secondo piatto because this dish is fish one.)

 

Carnaroli risotto, sea bream with stock made of citron and Mirim.

Carnaroli is a kind of rice nomally use in rissoto.

Certainly rice's texture was good, Also rice's sweet taste was great.

Stock was thick, and have a citron flavor.

 

The way they cooked this sea bream was usually used in japanese cuisine,

Focused on sea bream's scales.

Anyway, it was good, But not that much special.

 

secondo piatto

 

Rump round steak garnish with a jerusalem artichoke, hazelnuts and spinach

Personally, I couldn't inspired by this steak.

I don't know about Rump round well,

But steak was not tender, a little bit tough.

 

Sauce was also too strong for me.

Gladly, jerusalem artichoke and spinach were well matched with steak,

and also delicious.

 

It was a little bit disappointed main for me.

Primo piatto

('primo' because this is pasta lol)

 

Tomato-based pasta.

Put grilled hairtail, tomato sauce on the pasta,

Decorated with japanese ginger, and siso.

It was the first time for me to experience pasta with fish,

Not enough to surprise, but good combination for me.

Hairtail was well cooked, and tasty,

But in my opinion, i'm not sure it makes a good combination

between tomato sauce and hairtail.......

Anyway, It was a delicious pasta contrary to my expectation.

Dolce

 

Paste Mascarpone cheese on the bottom,

Put on ice cream made of marsala,

Decorated with cacao chip.

I think this idea comes from tiramisu.

(Used tiramisu ingredients like mascapone, cacao, ice cream)

But there was one big flaw in there.

My one has too much cocoa powder on it,

And that powder made me cough every time I ate.

 

Taste of dessert was good.

But that flaw made me a little uncomfortable.

Piccola pasticceria and caffe

 

You can choose one tea from five options.

(coffee/green tea/chamomile/peppermint/lemonsky).

I chosen chamomile.

With tea I chosen, they served three sweet snacks.

Chamomile tea was rich, Also snacks were sweet pleasurably.

Good for finish.

 

 

General Review

 

Quite unique compared to conventional italian.

Used many japanese cuisine technique and ingredients.

For me, Japanese italian dish was generally satisfactory.

French Sparkling wine was also good.

 

But main(steak) was not good,

It would be better if they pay more attention to their detail in the dessert.

(powder happening)

And hope the server explain more about the detail of dish.

 

Even so, Server's table check (checking speed of course, refill the water)

was fine, and price was reasonable for this course.

 

I recommend to these guests

 

Who wants to know what is japanese italian

 

The person want to experience michelin restaurant,

But too expensive to pay more than 100$ in one meal,

SO want to experience a michelin 2 star restaurant course less then 100$

The person want to experience dish not novel, but stable.

 

 

 

so, thank for reading my review,

it would be glad to see you again through my review.

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thank you.