Serving award-winning traditional cuisine, The Shilla Seoul’s three Michelin-starred Korean restaurant La Yeon introduces new dishes in its spring menu.
Helmed by Chef Kim Sung Il, one of Korea’s most respected chefs with over 25 years’ experience in the art of Korean cuisine, La Yeon honours Korea’s culinary history, focusing on time-honoured recipes and locally-sourced seasonal ingredients.
La Yeon’s new menu is structured in seven or eleven courses, a departure from typical Korean cuisine which is rarely served in this format. This multi-course approach reflects Chef Kim’s vision to innovate and rethink traditional Korean cuisine, ensuring guests are served dishes at the right temperature.
Highlights of the new spring menu include creative interpretations of classic dishes, including Chilled Keen’s Gaper Salad with Wild Greens Sauce. Soft pen shells are used in this version and complemented with bamboo sprouts, wild vegetables, and marinated scallions. The combination creates an aroma of fresh herbs and is best eaten after being dipped into a brown rice vinegar sauce.
For lovers of seafood, the Chilled Sea Bream with Soy Bean Paste Sauce is prepared in a yuzu and herb salt marinade filled with radish, apple, and water parsley. The sauce uses La Yeon’s in-house fermented soy bean paste, a Korean staple that is widely used in soups to enhance the flavors with an unconventional, umami-style twist.
The restaurant’s signature Hanwoo (Korean beef) remains on the menu for those wishing to sample the finest marbled beef from Hoengseong in Gangwon Province, regarded as the premium destination for Korean beef. The hand-selected 1++ class Hanwoo features in the Char-grilled Snowflake Korean Beef Sirloin, Thin Char-grilled Slices of Korean Beef Sirloin in Soy Sauce, and Braised Korean Beef Short Ribs in Sweet Soy Sauce with Chestnuts and Dates. The beef at La Yeon is aged in-house at The Shilla Seoul’s specially-designed facilities to ensure consistency and premium quality.
Additional main courses include the ultimate comfort dish Seasonal Hot Pot Rice, a deceptively simple dish comprising layers of complex flavors. The dish features freshly-sourced sea bream and bamboo sprouts on a bed of fragrant Gimpo Gold Rice, the latter continuing a 5,000-year tradition. The husks of the rice grains are removed every morning in La Yeon’s kitchen to ensure flawless form and a fresh fragrance before being cooked in kelp water with an optimum 0.4% salinity and water chestnut to capture the dish’s deep-sea flavors.
The new menu culminates with seasonal fruit or a Red Ginseng Ice Cream and Pudding with Brown Sugar Syrup.
La Yeon’s Spring Menu is available for lunch from KRW 103,000 per person or from KRW 175,000 per person for dinner. For more information or reservations, please contact La Yeon at (82) 2-2230-3367 or visit www.shilla.net.