The Food of Our Fourth Season at Double T Dining

9 min read6 hours ago

By Yoo-Seok, Oh · Double T Dining

Dishes from our fourth season, photographed together.

A second view of the dishes from our fourth season.

These are the dishes we introduced for our fourth season in May 2024. I wanted to give our food a more distinct identity by trying new and unfamiliar styles. I made that clear to Chef Marco, and many of the dishes grew out of those conversations.

Fourth season: May to October 2024.

Looking back, I think innovative cuisine is the closest description of our fourth season. When I suggested trying something new, Chef Marco would develop dishes that brought Korean or Japanese elements into Western cooking, or find new ways to pair familiar sauces and garnishes.

Reactions were mixed. Some guests loved the dishes, while others complained about particular ones. In this post, I want to share why we made them and what it was like to serve them.

As in the earlier posts, I have combined Chef Marco’s explanations of the dishes and his intentions with my own memories of running the restaurant. I have also included the à la carte dishes we served at lunch.

Where is Gangneung?

Gangneung is in Gangwon State on South Korea’s east coast, east of Seoul.

Gangneung on South Korea’s east coast, with Seoul shown for orientation. City locations are approximate.

The KTX high-speed train journey from Seoul Station to Gangneung Station takes around two hours, depending on the service.

Appetizers

French Onion Soup

We were serving an à la carte menu at the time, and guests kept asking for soup. So I suggested to the chef that we add one.

I felt that guests already had a fairly clear idea of what soup should taste and look like. I worried that an unfamiliar approach, like serving it with a poached egg in our first season, might put some guests off. For the soup, at least, I wanted to keep things traditional.

Chef Marco made French onion soup in response. It took so much onion chopping that I got quite an earful from him for suggesting it.

French Burrata Caprese

This was a slightly refined version of the French Burrata Caprese we had served before. The chef kept the idea of turning caprese into a single sauce, spreading it on the plate and placing the burrata on top.

The red sauce underneath contained sun-dried tomatoes and several other ingredients. He wanted the sauce itself to have a complex flavour. As I remember it, the ingredients for the sauce cost more than the burrata.

Double T Salad II

I suggested doing something a little unusual with the salad as well. We already had a salad with meat and a cheese-centred burrata dish, so I wanted a seafood salad too.

Chef Marco combined herb powder with Japanese shrimp oboro. He explained that the oboro was made by simmering shrimp in mirin and was also used in shrimp sushi. The fact that we brought so many elements into a salad gives you a sense of how eager we were to try new things that season.

Scallops with Mini Cos

The chef placed the scallops over a peppermint mayonnaise sauce and topped them with almond pâte brisée. He felt that the vegetables and sauce alone lacked richness, so he used the buttery almond pastry to give the dish more substance.

I particularly liked the grilled vegetables. They had a crisp bite, and their juices and flavour came through as I chewed.

Rillettes

We needed something to take the place of the baccalà as a dish to enjoy with drinks. Chef Marco made traditional French pork rillettes and served them with prune jam simmered in port wine and with pistachios.

We considered prunes and figs for the jam. Chef Marco chose prunes because he thought their sweetness worked better with the pork and suited a dish meant to be eaten with drinks.

Some guests were sensitive to the pronounced flavour and aroma of finely minced meat served cold. Guests from abroad and those familiar with European cooking loved it, while others found that flavour harder to enjoy.

I think that was when I began to get a clearer sense of which dishes would work for our guests in Korea, both as the owner and as the person running the dining room.

Beef Foie Gras Terrine

The Beef Foie Gras Terrine made me think about that question even more. I love foie gras, and I had enjoyed it many times thanks to Chef Marco. I asked him if he could make foie gras for us.

Chef Marco explained that foie gras is usually made with goose or duck liver. For a change, he suggested trying beef liver. He used it with butter to make a terrine that evoked the flavour and texture of foie gras.

I thought the idea might work because beef is popular in Korea and beef liver is a familiar ingredient. Chef Marco made the terrine to spread on bread and served it with a sweet berry sauce, brown sauce and rocket. I hoped the sweetness would make it easier for guests to enjoy.

But reactions were even more divided than they had been to the rillettes. Some wine-loving guests praised it highly, while others disliked the distinctive flavour of liver. We also received some strong complaints.

The liver flavour was pronounced, so I told guests in advance that I would not recommend it unless they enjoyed liver. It was an unusual and interesting dish, but one I could not comfortably recommend to everyone.

Pasta

Dentice al Mare (Red Seabream Pasta)

This was a variation on our earlier flounder tapenade pasta. Chef Marco used sea bream in place of flounder and changed the composition. He had served the dish in Rome.

It was quite different from a typical pasta allo scoglio. The chef used saffron, thyme and a range of other ingredients to give it a refined flavour.

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To me, this pasta was very much in the fine-dining style. When I think about flavour in fine dining, some dishes present one flavour with such intensity that it feels deep and concentrated. Others let you taste the subtleties of several ingredients, while others introduce entirely new flavours or forms.

Dentice al Mare was the kind of dish that let several ingredients shine. Even with so many in the bowl, I could taste them individually, and they complemented the sea bream.

Main Courses

Golden Sand Dunes (Red Seabream Steak)

Chef Marco served the sea bream with saffron risotto, spooned a pesto-style sauce of celery purée, pistachios and garlic around it, and finished the dish with fish oil.

Chef Marco wanted to move beyond familiar combinations here too. He described the dish as close to innovative French cuisine and said he would like to make it again someday.

It was a personal favourite, and I remember everyone who ordered it being pleased with it.

Snowy Mountain (Mutton Rib Steak)

The chef took inspiration from the scenery of Mount Taebaek. A great deal of care and effort went into these mutton chops.

Chef Marco served the chops with chicken velouté and shimeji mushroom confit made with jujubes, balsamic vinegar and soy sauce. He explained that jujubes are also used in Europe, and that soy sauce was his way of giving the dish a subtle Korean touch.

Instead of the usual parsley crust, he added matcha sablé to the mutton chops. This brought a Japanese element to the dish.

You could call it Asian French, though to me the dish was predominantly French with a light Asian influence. The plating was simple, but the contrast in colours stood out. The flavour was excellent too, and I was very happy with it.

Orange Festival (Beef Striploin Steak)

After trying striploin at fine-dining restaurants in Korea, I found myself wondering why the steaks I’d had tasted so similar. That was my own impression, and it gave me the idea for this dish.

I wanted to move away from the flavours people automatically associate with striploin and try something different. I shared that thought with the chef, and it played a large part in how he developed the dish.

Chef Marco paired the steak with Gorgonzola and apple purée, brown sauce, and a balsamic and apple sauce. He added carrot confit with orange and rocket tossed in lemon dressing. To me, it felt closer to innovative cuisine than to the cooking of any one country.

Chef Marco thought the dish was inventive, though it didn’t appeal to everyone. Some guests stopped at “That’s interesting” and never got to “That’s delicious.” He later wondered if the experiment had been a little too far ahead of what our guests in Korea were ready for.

Lunch

Boulette with Mini Salad

I wanted to offer good-value à la carte dishes for lunch and take the menu in a different direction from the previous season. Boulette with Mini Salad was one of the dishes we came up with. Chef Marco made the boulettes in the French style, seasoning the meat with spices and serving them with a sauce.

The boulettes themselves were not especially novel. Some guests saw them as American-style meatballs, which was different from what we had in mind. Personally, I thought they were closer to relaxed bistro food than to the style of dining we usually aimed for.

Pork Belly

Pork Belly was another à la carte option we wanted guests to be able to enjoy easily at lunch. Chef Marco took inspiration from the lighter steaks served at lunch or as part of a course menu in France. He put pancetta and roasted potatoes over onion purée and added Emmental to the potatoes.

The lighter onion purée balanced the richness of the pancetta. Chef Marco wanted to make something you might enjoy in a bistro. Like the boulettes, I felt it was more at home there than in our usual style of dining.

Dessert

Pistachio Semifreddo

For this semifreddo, Chef Marco used pistachios in place of the hazelnuts from the previous season. We had already been considering a pistachio version and served it this time.

The fourth season grew out of my wish to serve more adventurous food. Chef Marco took that idea and experimented with different ingredients and combinations.

We served the dishes à la carte at the time, but looking back, I think they would have worked better as part of a course menu. Each had such a distinct character that I think a carefully planned sequence would have served them better than individual à la carte orders.