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It’s genuinely hard for a restaurant to feel fun in a non-try-hard, non-gimmicky way but Korean Dinner Party 100 percent achieves it. Playful neon squiggles dangle from the ceiling, there’s a low-key buzz of Korean hip hop and the fusion menu’s full of dishes calculated to make you smile: matcha-dusted soft-serve cones served on special wire holders, cocktails with Yakult toppings or cubes of jelly lurking in their depths.
It’s all the handiwork of chefs Ana Gonçalves and Zijun Meng (the forces behind mould-breaking Haggerston joint Tata Eatery), who’ve turned the top floor of Soho’s Kingly Court into a dimly lit palace of accessible culinary invention. Their loose inspiration is LA’s Koreatown, whose Mexican and Korean residents dream up delicious hybrid fast foods.
As you’d expect, there are a couple of beautifully rendered twists on Korean classics on offer. The kimchi pancake was fat-bellied and meltingly soft, served with an unorthodox but completely delicious mustard mayo for dipping. The kimchi stone pot was just as winsome: it arrived furiously bubbling like a little witch’s cauldron, with a raw egg slipped into its rich, sour depths just as it was served.
But it’s the tacos that felt truest to this place’s playful, goodtime vibes. Forget restaurants that serve up rarified single tacos on slate boards for £10+ a pop. Those places don’t have your best interests at heart. The Korean Dinner Party approach is to give you a metal board with generous mounds of delectable, unusual fillings, along with as many wheat taco refills as you need to polish the whole lot off. The al pastor pork neck came in a wonderfully untidy, moreish tangle of tender meat that was lifted by the lightly acid slaw and ssamjang sauce (made of chilli-laced fermented soybeans). And the Korean fried cauliflower was thickly encrusted with crispy batter, accompanied by fried rice sticks to supply the kind of satisfying heft and crunch that veggies can usually only dream of.
There are eccentric dessert cocktails on offer for afters (the banana milk punch came topped with torched marshmallows). But who can say no to a vanilla soft-serve cone, precariously topped with matcha and caramelised cornflakes? It was a fittingly playful end to a meal that put the ‘party’ back in ‘dinner party’.
The vibe Fun-loving Korean fusion food on the top floor of Soho’s Kingly Court.
The food Abundant tacos, twists on Korean classics and soft serve for afters.
The drink Korean beers, soju, sake, or imaginative cocktails like the tea-scented Forsythia.
Time Out tip Go on Tuesdays to get bottomless tacos for £20 per head: what a deal!