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CHINGU IS THE MOST EXCITING RESTAURANT TO OPEN IN KC THIS YEAR
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By Liz Cook
Restaurants are theaters, service is a script, and when you eat out for a (partial) living, you start to anticipate the lines. Servers across the city tend to say the same things—usually “get out of our restaurant, Liz.”
But the line I hear most often these days might be, “chef recommends two to three small plates per person.”
I’ve become so inured to that particular style of small-plate dining that I was sure I misheard our server at Chingu when she recommended two to three plates per table
I ignored her advice. I shouldn’t have.
Chingu means “friend” in Korean, and you’ll need to bring a few here if you don’t want leftovers. Chef Keeyoung Kim (who also operates Sura Eats inside Parlor) opened the restaurant in Westport last November to showcase what he calls the “three pillars:” Korean barbecue, street food, and his mom’s home cooking.
Wedding those inspirations worked: Chingu is one of the most exciting restaurants to open in KC in months.
The menu is divided into “smaller” and “larger” sections, but “small” is relative here. The jjajang tteokbokki plate ($14) was piled with lasagne layers of shredded cabbage, thin-sliced mushrooms, crunchy zucchini, and bouncy, cylindrical rice cakes—all coated in a fermented black bean sauce. It’s a mild dish, and a great entry point for diners unfamiliar with Korean food, but there are more exciting small(er) plates here.
The pajeon ($13), a pan-crisped scallion pancake, came in eight enormous, fluffy wedges (a frisée salad and sweet soy dipping sauce were served alongside). And the golbaengi muchim ($15), a plate of buckwheat noodles and moon snails, was easily entree-sized.
That pajeon is compulsory; the golbaengi muchim could be with a couple tweaks. The moon snails in my dish were leathery and bland, having absorbed little of the assertive gochujang-pear dressing, and the overlarge clumps of frisée made it challenging to compose a balanced bite.
Perhaps the only small “smaller plate”—and justly so, given the indulgence—is the corn cheese ($10), a bubbling crock of sweet corn stippled with gochujang and enveloped in mayonnaise and mozzarella. Corn cheese is a staple side at Korean barbecue joints, but Kim adds cotija and lime to his version to cut through the richness—a deliberate (and successful) nod toward Mexican street corn.
That street food influence carries through to the restaurant’s ambience, which evokes a late-night, neon-tinged walk through bustling food stalls on a crowded street. The dining room is nearly always buzzing with conversation—on busy nights, it’s downright loud. And while the decor feels a bit sterile right now, a couple key pieces—a colorful mural wall, a blazing pink neon sign—help the dining room feel more distinctive.
Fleshing out the design and fine-tuning the service might be the only things Kim and his crew need to do to transform Chingu into a Westport fixture. Service on all three of my visits was friendly but rushed. The menu invites guests to participate in a “fun, interactive learning experience,” but plates and banchan were often dropped at the table without introduction or instruction.
Chef Keeyoung Kim.
Photo by Zach Bauman
And diners new to Korean cuisine might need an introduction to the complimentary banchan—here, four dollhouse bowls of kimchi, gai lan, marinated bean sprouts, and pickled onions. The banchan are equal parts side dish and condiment, there to enhance the plates you order or just to offer a palate-twisting snack between bites.
The two rotating banchan—on my visits, bean sprouts and gai lan—were too chastely seasoned, though Kim says he’s planning on some “funkier” banchan in the near future. The permanent fixtures were stronger. The kimchi was spark-bright and bubbly, though it isn’t (yet) made in-house. And the tangy sliced onions—pickled in soy sauce and mirin with a few chunky jalapeño slices—were the best of the four.
Those banchan make dining at Chingu feel a little more celebratory, a little more theatrical. The portions and plating do, too. The “larger” section of the menu is stacked with elegantly composed/indecorously proportioned hits. The bossam ($26) I ordered arrived with more than a dozen thick slices of luscious, crisp-edged pork belly fanned around Romaine leaf wrappers and an island of condiments (salty fermented shrimp, sweet-hot ssamjang, and napkin-thin slices of raw garlic and jalapeño). And the LA Galbi ($28), a mound of beef short ribs sliced flanken-style, across the bones, were nicely grill-charred and fragrant with ginger and Asian pear.
You can (and should) bring a horde of hungry friends and order both of those entrees. But if you only have room on your table for one large plate, make it the Korean Fried Chicken ($18). Each order comes with six whole, hulking wings, coated in a craggy breading and glossed in either a soy-citrus or gochujang sauce (you can also ask for three of each). I recommend the latter: the gochujang glaze was peppery but not challenging.
That fried chicken exemplifies Chingu at its best: beautifully presented plates that still feel casual and fun. So do the cocktails (all $12, and all named after K-pop songs), which were designed by Waldo Thai bar manager Darrell Loo. The “Yet to Come” sips like a fizzy lemonade thanks to a base of Jinro Chamisul Fresh soju and citron tea. But my favorite drink on the menu was the “Beautiful Monster,” a light and floral blend of Lifted Spirits Bold gin, Myungjak Bokbunja (a Korean raspberry wine), ginger, and lavender.
In addition to the cocktails, the bar offers a small but well-priced selection of beer, wine, and soju—a clear Korean spirit distilled from rice. Kim tells me he plans to add house-made soju to the menu soon.
Kim plans to add a lot of things soon. And if he can keep that trajectory, Chingu’s future looks neon-bright. In addition to soju, Kim is planning to debut house-made kimchi—he recently leased a commissary space so he’d have more cabbage-wranglin’ room. Add a coffee shop spin-off with Korean-influenced pastries to the list. The chef opened Chingu Coffee as a pop-up shop at the Plexpod Westport Commons last month, but plans to open a more permanent version in the second-floor space above Bay Boy later this year.
