4-person work dinner: Korean beef steak & shrimp bisque linguine

Today I'm writing up my visit to Mano di Chef Gangnam, a Blue Ribbon-listed restaurant near Yeoksam Station. Mano di Chef Gangnam serves Italian food made with fresh, locally sourced ingredients!

It's great for a casual work dinner and just as good for a date or a blind date — the atmosphere and the food were both fantastic. Let's get into it~

An Italian restaurant that captures the fresh taste of the season

Mano di Chef Gangnam hours, reservations, parking

• Hours: Mon-Sat 11:00-21:30 / Break time 15:00-17:00 / Last order 14:00, 20:30
• Reservations: Naver Reservation · Catch Table · phone
• Rooms: private small room (8 people) up to 100 people max
• Takeout discount: 20% off for in-store takeout (excluding December)
• Birthday coupon: one free pizza
• Free wine corkage: until Nov 30, 2026, free for up to 2 bottles with ₩100,000+ spend (wine 750ml ₩30,000/bottle, whiskey 700ml ₩50,000/bottle)
• Zero Pay accepted
• Parking: free

Between Gangnam and Yeoksam stations, B1 of Bithumb Finance Tower

At 5pm, right after break time ended, I arrived at Mano di Chef with coworkers who'd just finished work. Located on B1 of Bithumb Finance Tower, between Gangnam Station Exit 12 and Yeoksam Station Exit 4, Mano di Chef is known as a place to experience the essence of Italian cooking in Gangnam — the steak, pasta, and pizza are all famous here.

It's great for a casual meal out, but with menu items like steak and lobster suited for special occasions, it would also work well for anniversaries or year-end gatherings.

Korean beef steak & unlimited wine dinner

If you visit in the evening especially, note that there's a dinner set with Korean beef steak and unlimited wine!

• Korean beef steak & unlimited wine dinner ₩99,900/person
• Available 17:00-21:00
• Korean beef steak (110g) + 1 best pairing dish (choice of one) + unlimited from 10 world wines

A hall with wide seating gaps and fully independent rooms

The interior is cozy yet modern, with generous space between tables that gives the whole place a relaxed feel.

Rooms are available for parties of 8 or more, and they're not just partitioned-off sections — they're fully independent rooms, which felt much more private and nice~ Since we were only 4 people today, we didn't get to use one, unfortunately.

Still, the staff gave us a nice spacious six-person table, which meant we had plenty of room to spread out our food.

We booked by phone, but you can also reserve through Naver or Catch Table — good to keep in mind.

Menu lineup and prices

The menu is broadly divided into Korean beef steak, lobster, salads, pasta, risotto, and pizza. Korean beef steak and lobster run ₩100,000-200,000, while everything else is priced very reasonably in the mid-₩20,000s to low ₩30,000s!

We started with dolce baguette as an appetizer, then ordered Korean beef striploin steak, tomato seafood pasta, red shrimp bisque linguine, burrata cheese & bolognese radiatori, truffle & shiitake mushroom pizza, margherita pizza — really a ton of dishes!

And even after ordering that much, the total came to only about ₩350,000~ We over-ordered because it was a team dinner, but for a typical visit of 2 people ordering one pizza and one pasta, figure roughly ₩30,000 per person.

Appetizer: dolce baguette

My personal recommendation is the dolce baguette we had as an appetizer. It's garlic bread baked with honey, and if you've always thought of baguette as hard and chewy bread, this is one you really need to try. The fragrant garlic aroma, the sweetness of the honey, and the soft-yet-chewy bread — the combination is legendary!

Red shrimp bisque linguine and three plates of pasta

Somehow we ended up ordering pastas with fairly similar bases, but each one was delicious in its own distinct way — I think you really can't go wrong with any pasta at this Blue Ribbon spot near Yeoksam. Personally, the red shrimp bisque linguine hit exactly right for my taste — the octopus texture was seriously impressive, so I'd recommend giving it a try 🤗

Margherita pizza and truffle & shiitake mushroom pizza

We shared a margherita pizza and a truffle & shiitake mushroom pizza! The margherita was, of course, excellent since that's a dish this kind of place always nails, but surprisingly the mushroom pizza was also amazing! The savory, chewy mushrooms paired really well with the pizza cheese, and the flavor was rich — definitely recommend it~

The main event: Korean beef striploin steak

And finally, the main event — the Korean beef striploin steak! Cooked to a perfect medium, it came with grain mustard, wasabi, salt, and roasted garlic so you could dip it however you liked. It really melted in my mouth — the kind of dish that almost brought tears to my eyes~

We left completely stuffed after our visit to Mano di Chef Gangnam, a Blue Ribbon spot near Yeoksam. Definitely worth a stop the next time you're craving Western food.