December's things to do

Mija Seoul has been making waves since it first opened in May. The restaurant focuses on creating a dinner menu inspired by hearty Korean fare made with local and seasonal ingredients. Apart from using produce from the restaurant's rooftop garden, they also take time to source from local farms. Here, you’ll find Danish chef Kevin Kroløkke, who brings with him 10 years of restaurant experience from the now defunct, Michelin-starred, Restaurant Relæ. He helms the restaurant with his partner Tina Choi (also known as Doobydobap on TikTok and Instagram).

As soon as you’re in, watch out! You might accidentally sign up for a year membership. For those of you who don’t like to exercise but want to gain some muscles, or those who want to live back the moments when you were a child playing sports, Sports Monster is the place for you. Taking up around 5290 square meters on the 4th and rooftop, it is the world’s first ‘sportainment’ theme park. Basketball, volleyball and futsal, just to mention a few ball games, along with indoor rock-climbing, LED sports court, trampolines (that can make you jump more than 4m), 8.5m parachuting, bike racing, a dizzying rope course and Icarus flying experience are among the 30 varieties of sport contents that can be enjoyed. You can spend the whole day here without even noticing the minutes and hours pass right by you. You might even find yourself urging to return to the mall just to come back to Sports Monster.

Mingles is undoubtedly one of the most interesting modern Korean restaurants in Gangnam. As its name suggests, Mingles utilizes Japanese, Spanish and French styles of cooking with Korean cuisine as its backbone. By undertaking the serious work of studying the ingredients as well as well as demanding an exacting selection, the chefs at Mingles have been successfully demonstrating creative ways to expand and further existing concepts of Korean cooking. Utilizing seasonal ingredients and recipes that have been passed down through palace kitchens over the hundreds of years, they create impressive combinations of the traditional and popular. Their nutty, citrus yuja danja (citron pot), once offered to the kings of old, and their jangajji (pickled vegetables) that have been fermented for an extended period of time are just some of the innovative efforts that enable patrons to get a taste of the past and present. The crème brûlée trio made with Korean traditional sauces is another such recipe that defies existing concepts and offers to your palate flavors unlike any before. Having received one star from Michelin in 2017 and ranked 15 on Asia's 50 Best Restaurants in the same year, Mingles has proved its strength in innovation and their influence in the local food scene.