Bruschetta and potato gnocchi near Ilsan Lake Park: Upstairs Kitchen

Today I finally went back to Ilsan Lake Park after a while, and I wanted to introduce Upstairs Kitchen, a pasta and steak restaurant on Ilsan's Bamridan-gil that's great to visit when you're at the lake park.

Upstairs Kitchen Bamridan-gil Branch: exterior and where to park

Upstairs Kitchen Bamridan-gil Branch has quite a bit of parking space beside the restaurant. First, the exterior — the green and wood-toned decor caught my eye right away, and it seemed like a great spot for a date or anniversary! There's an empty lot nearby too, so it looked like roughly 8-10 cars could park there. If the lot fills up, they say you'll need to use a nearby public parking lot.

Inside Upstairs Kitchen: window seats and an Edward Hopper print

There are quite a lot of tables inside Upstairs Kitchen, and the window seats definitely felt more atmospheric. Behind my seat hung a painting I'd seen in several exhibitions — Edward Hopper's 'Nighthawks.' I've noticed quite a few restaurants and cafés hang that painting.

What is on the Upstairs Kitchen menu, and how much?

Upstairs Kitchen is a restaurant serving appetizers, pasta, risotto and steak. For appetizers there's bruschetta and salad — I've been to quite a few Italian restaurants, but bruschetta felt somewhat unfamiliar to me. Price-wise, excluding steak, everything is around ₩20,000.

Two pieces of bruschetta from the Naver review event

The bruschetta is ₩6,000 for 2 pieces — not a burdensome price, but being unfamiliar with it made me hesitate a bit about ordering. Then I found out you get it free for writing a Naver review, so I wrote one right away and received it. There was something like cheese spread on the bread, plenty of cucumber pickles and tomato pesto, and what looked like a bay leaf on top — it was quite delicious. The salty, tangy-sweet tomato flavor was perfect for whetting the appetite as a starter.

Sirloin steak cooked medium: choosing doneness and sides

At Upstairs Kitchen I ordered the sirloin steak and bacon cream gnocchi. There's a set menu too, and it's a better deal if you order two drinks, but we don't drink much soda and planned to split one, so we ordered à la carte instead. Drinks were ₩3,000, a bit pricier than other restaurants. For the steak, you could choose the doneness — I went with medium!

The steak comes with potatoes, which makes it more filling. The sauces served alongside were wholegrain mustard and wasabi. I did think it would've been nice to have salt as well. Can you see the meat?! The steak was incredibly thick. It came pre-sliced, which made it easy to eat. Honestly I wanted to order well-done, but my companion prefers medium-rare, so we compromised on medium — and eating through it, some of the end pieces were cooked quite well-done, which I actually liked better for the chewier texture and flavor! Listening to other tables order, it sounded like medium-rare was the popular choice.

Bacon cream gnocchi: crisp outside, soft inside

Next up is the potato gnocchi. It was on the larger side compared to gnocchi I've had elsewhere, and it followed the textbook definition of crispy-outside, soft-inside. The outside was crunchy while the inside was chewy and soft like rice cake. The sauce was a cream base with bacon and something crispy like fried bits mixed in, which made for a fun texture too.

The gnocchi portion was seriously huge, right?! It was delicious even spooning that cream sauce over the steak. I stopped by this restaurant after attending an event at Ilsan Lake Park, and it was a fully satisfying experience from the atmosphere to the food. If you're looking for a good restaurant on Bamridan-gil or near Ilsan Lake Park, why not stop by Upstairs Kitchen Bamridan-gil Branch?!