To reach Manhattan’s hottest new fine-dining destination, patrons will have to traipse beneath the pavement and enter a key code into a black door.
Set to open later this month, Nōksu will offer an upmarket tasting menu experience at a definitively plebeian location: A former barbershop in the 34th Street Herald Square subway station.
“It’s a really cool, unique hidden gem of a space. It kind of gives off a little bit of that ‘exclusivity’ feeling,” Bobby Kwak, who co-owns the 12-seat chef’s counter restaurant with Joseph Ko, told the Resy Rundown.
The pair previously partnered on Koreatown’s location of the California-born Baekjeong Korean barbeque chain, but wanted to “go into a fine-dining direction,” Kwak explained, adding that, Korean food — like speakeasy-style hidden venues — are “really trendy, and very hot right now.”
The name Nōksu riffs on the venue’s subterranean location, and is Korean for “of the earth,” although the intimate space has been thoroughly redesigned to exude not nature but sophistication, with an open kitchen and black-and-white Korean ink wash painting-inspired counters.
The two-and-a-half-hour, 15-course meal is also meant to represent the terrestrial tranquility that comes from being in the bowels of Midtown, yet consuming a $225 meal.
(For an additional $175, there is a German and California-varietal heavy wine pairing available or the sober option, for $95, of a zero-proof cocktail and Korean tea-based mocktail pairing.)
“You feel a sense of serenity while you’re in the space,” Ko told Resy. “The food itself will also represent that, in the plating.”
The kitchen will be led by Chef Dae Kim, a “20-something wunderkind” who has previously cooked at the likes of Per Se and Silver Apricot, according to a release.
Photos of the seafood-heavy fall menu appear almost more art object than edible — and include such photogenic courses as Kegani (turnips, crab innard maitre d’butter), Iwashi (potato, grilled radicchio, yuzu kosho) and Cotton Candy Grape (tahitian vanilla, white chocolate).
Nōksu’s grand opening is set for Sept. 21.