Korean-French Fare Slides Into Boerum Hill With Brasserie Seoul

Butter and kimchi get equal billing at Boerum Hill’s new French Korean bistro Brasserie Seoul, reopen today with a new chef and menu. The Holiday Inn restaurant, at 300 Schermerhorn St. near Nevins Street, now has Sung Park as executive chef, who is combining his Korean heritage and French training from chefs like Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Laurent Tourondel.

Park is also the chef at Bistro Petit, where regulars there will recognize dishes on Brasserie Seoul’s menu such as seafood bouillabaisse with kimchi, fried tofu, and rice gnocchi or beef bourguignon with Korean dates, shiitake mushrooms, horseradish, turnips, carrots, and hobak (pumpkin) puree. Brunch is also available, with dishes like rice cake waffles and steak and eggs with gochujang sauce. The full menus are below for what Park tells the Times is his “dream” restaurant.

When Brasserie Seoul opened a year ago, the name was Park’s idea, to go along with his French-Korean fusion concept. But he was not attached to the project, and though the owners still used the name, the menu was straight-forward Korean fare. New owners recently took over, though, and approached Park to come on board. Now, the new interiors — with a brass bar and attached greenhouse — and menus match his original vision.

Brasserie Seoul joins a burgeoning genre of restaurants in NYC — Oiji and Soogil in the East Village and Jeju Noodle Bar in the West Village — where the chefs are trained in classic French techniques and cooking Korean food in that vein. The restaurant is now open daily for breakfast through dinner.

• French Techniques and Korean Ingredients Meet Up in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn [NYT]