The space is a small converted hanok. What's now the main dining floor was originally the courtyard. During the renovation, we planted wild grapevines and crape myrtles in the corners of the dining area. The wild grapevine is wonderful in every way: the branches climb and trail like a vine, the fruit hangs in clusters smaller than regular grapes but just as charming, and the leaves are beautiful too. We laid a slate roof over the dining area so guests could hear the rain pattering down on rainy days. Ten years on, the vines have grown so thick they absorb most of the rainwater, so you can't quite catch that sound anymore, but the atmosphere more than makes up for it. I wanted guests to feel as if they'd come to visit a friend's home in the countryside, and it hit the mark. I often hear that the atmosphere here is wonderful.

We first opened in 2011, so it's been fifteen years already. I was originally in construction and development. In that line of work, I was out at a beef restaurant almost every evening. Business dinners were frequent, and even just catching up with friends over drinks, I must have tried every restaurant around. After years of being a regular customer, one day it occurred to me: why not try this myself? It's a completely different field from what I'd been doing, but I love beef, so it wasn't entirely foreign territory. I decided I wanted to create a place where people could enjoy exceptional food in a relaxed atmosphere, and that's how it started.

Yes, we started across the street, in Park Tower. The name was POONG MI HYANG even then. I opened with a franchise model in mind, but it didn't work out. After picking myself up and reassessing, I found that the current location had lower rent. There was a military base out front, and with redevelopment talk swirling at the time, the price was quite affordable. I actually preferred it. Construction hoardings now block the view, but back then, looking out over rows of old trees beyond the base wall was really beautiful; there was nowhere quite like it in Seoul. It wasn't a high-traffic area, but many people I'd met through business made the trip out. And I cooked every meal as if I were cooking for a friend.

Thankfully, almost everyone who came once became a regular. In those early days, people would say it felt like having a drink in a friend's backyard. These days, they say they love that it hasn't changed.

Ingredients. You could talk about the importance of quality ingredients ten times, a hundred times, and it still wouldn't be enough. The food is only as good as what goes into it. Whatever the dish, we never try to build flavor through artificial means; we let the natural quality of each ingredient speak for itself. Just today, I drove all the way to Guri to inspect the beef in person before buying it.

For lunch, the bulgogi is our most popular dish, and I'm genuinely confident recommending it. If you work on Hangang-daero and haven't tried it yet, please do come in. For dinner, I recommend the 'special set menu.' It comes in four-person and six-person formats, served course by course. The course includes Hanwoo grade 2+ sirloin and beef brisket, yukhoe (beef tartare), and yukjeon (pan-fried battered beef) from the same grade of beef, East Sea octopus, steamed wild sea bream, seasonal sashimi, live abalone, wild sea squirt, and Grade 1 Korean pork suyuk. It's a course that lets you experience the finest of both our beef and seafood selections. Even when putting this set together, the quality of ingredients always comes first. I personally inspect every piece of fish and every cut of beef before it comes through the door.

As I mentioned, most people who visit once become regulars. Some have been coming for years, and there are times when having only beef starts to feel a little repetitive. Now and then, someone would say, "Sungwook, haven't you got anything else for us?" and I'd bring out seasonal seafood on the spot, things like blue crab. Eventually, I thought, I should do this properly. I paid for private lessons from a Japanese cuisine specialist at a restaurant I frequent. After that, I developed the set menu, bringing together the finest wild seasonal seafood and presenting it all in a single course.

Yes, it's very popular. But recently, I had no choice but to raise the price by 3,000 won. We'd held the Hanwoo grade 2+ bulgogi at 12,000 won for a long time, but beef prices rose to the point where we could no longer maintain that price. The thing about food is that freshness is everything. If the price is too high, turnover slows, and when turnover slows, there's a risk of ingredients sitting too long, which affects the taste. So I agonized over it, held out as long as I could, and in the end had to give in.

I never imagined it would look like this. Looking back, I should have bought land in Yongsan instead of opening a restaurant. (Laughs) The change has been extraordinary. Back then, nobody walked past the front of our place. When I first opened and started planting trees and doing up the interior, some of the neighbors thought it was odd. Why open a restaurant here when no one's going to come? Just ten years ago, this alley was a place where elderly locals played yut nori (a traditional Korean board game) and janggi (Korean chess), sat in front of their doors with neighbors, sharing a bottle of soju. I chose this spot because I loved that atmosphere. And then, little by little, word got out, thanks in large part to Amorepacific.

Back when the current Amorepacific building was still under construction, there was an innisfree training center in the building across the street. When I first opened, I noticed young people coming and going over there. I didn't use flyers; I printed a few extra copies of the menu and walked over myself. I told them we were making great food with quality beef, and asked them to come and try it. They did, and word gradually spread. Once the innisfree training center closed, those same people started coming back with colleagues from the main office, for company dinners and for lunch.

What stands out is how impeccably everyone was dressed. I thought people who work in cosmetics really are different. There was a sense of pride in the company that came through even in how they dressed. And as Amorepacific grew its global profile, foreign tourists began visiting the neighborhood in greater numbers, which was good for us as well.

COVID-19, without question. Office workers in the area stopped coming in, and corporate dinners disappeared overnight. The timing was particularly hard: just as the original restaurant was doing well, we had recently opened a large second POONG MI HYANG location in Ichon-dong, only for the pandemic to strike almost as soon as we opened the doors. I barely managed to wind it down and get back on my feet. Beyond that, the other ongoing challenge is ingredient quality. I cannot bring myself to serve anything less than fresh just because it's a slow day. If someone pays good money for Hanwoo and it's not at its best, they won't come back. Hanwoo is expensive, and if something isn't used within its proper window, it goes straight into the bin. Throwing away expensive ingredients is painful and even heartbreaking, but there's no other way. A moment of frustration is worth it if it means the restaurant lasts. Fortunately, having been here over ten years in the same spot, our customer base has grown broad enough that we're not easily rattled anymore. And the amount we have to discard has been steadily decreasing.

When you run a restaurant, knowing when to let things go is the single most important thing. It applies to every ingredient. People don't eat bulgogi today and come back for more tomorrow. With Hanwoo, it's even more pronounced. Most people only have it a few times a year. And when they next want it, they might well go somewhere else entirely. Quite some time can pass before that same guest comes back to us. When they finally do, and the quality isn't what they remember, they won't return. You need the strength to wait for a guest to come back, and to build that strength, you have to be willing to let things go. Hold on to something out of reluctance to waste it, serve it anyway, and that guest is gone for good — and eventually, so is the restaurant.

A secret of sorts, yes. But as I mentioned, as our customer base has grown, turnover has picked up, so we don't have to discard nearly as much anymore. (Laughs) We've also built real trust with our suppliers, so they look after us with the best produce. It's become a virtuous cycle.

I've said a good deal about the difficult moments, but the rewarding ones far outweigh them. When guests tell me the food is delicious, it truly means the world. When someone says it was so good they'll be back soon, and they actually return and bring someone new with them, that's when I know I'm doing this right. More than any advertising, what really keeps this place alive is guests who bring friends back through the door. We'll keep bringing you food rich in flavor and fragrance, made with the freshest ingredients. Please do visit us at POONG MI HYANG. For lunch or for dinner, you'll be warmly welcomed.