Imok Smoke Dining

02What to order

• Signature beef rib (시그니처 비프립)So-galbi, beef short rib, four hours over oak. In every course.
• Bacon and breadThick bacon, smoked eight hours, brushed with maple syrup. Duroc pork, on the house menu.
• Galbi-ramyeon and the closing brothMICHELIN describes noodles in a spicy broth boiled with the rib, there to cut the fat. The house menu now closes with a bone broth of bean sprouts, bracken and radish: noodles in the Hall line, rice in the others.
• The long dinnerThree lines: Hall, Lunch, Dinner, with courses named for the life of a tree, from seed and sprout to firewood and ash. The shortest has 8 dishes; the longest has 10, adding striped jack, black cod and a second dessert.

03The beef

The cut is beef short rib, so-galbi. No source states origin, breed or grade. What matters here is time in the smoke, and the rib gets four hours of it.

04The fire

Oak wood. The beef rib takes four hours of smoke. The bacon takes eight; back in Namyeong-dong, in 2021, Esquire counted 40 hours for the Iberian bacon. Yoo is known for smoking over oak logs, chamnamu jangjak. Low heat, long hours, wood you can name.

05The story

The lab opened in November 2020 in the Namyeong Arcade, Yongsan, as the Yoo Yong-wook Barbecue Lab. Yoo had spent eight years at CJ CheilJedang; Esquire called him an office worker for whom barbecue was a hobby. The lab moved to Sinsa-dong and reopened as Imok Smoke Dining, with several courses; Project Mark finished the interior in 2023. The name comes from an orchard in Imok-ri, where the lab began. Yoo cooked in season 2 of Netflix's Culinary Class Wars as a black spoon, nicknamed the barbecue lab director. In 2026 Burger King Korea built its Smoke Beef Rib Whopper on his rib recipe.

06The practical

Basement, 6 Apgujeong-ro 2-gil, Gangnam-gu. Lunch 12:00–15:00, dinner 18:00–21:30 on the house site, 21:00 on MICHELIN and CatchTable. Tuesday, dinner only. Closed Sunday and Monday. Booking is through CatchTable only, no phone; seats open on the 10th of each month at 13:00, with no cancellations or date changes. Dining room, counter, and five private rooms for 3 to 10; preschool children only in the private rooms. Wine pairing ₩150,000. Corkage ₩70,000 for wine, ₩100,000 for whisky, one bottle per table. Valet ₩5,000 for 2 hours. Book on the 10th.

Address

B1F, 6 Apgujeong-ro 2-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul

Phone

+82 50-71341-4729

Website

imoksmokedining.com

Directions

Google Maps ↗

07In Seoul’s selections