Western restaurant near Gyodae Station: chicken liver choux, Vinovine

Vinovine near Seocho Station is a Western restaurant that works well for a date or a meeting, a special place where you can enjoy both the meal and dessert in one go. It deserves praise especially from women, with its upscale atmosphere and carefully prepared course dishes. It is also known as a wine bar near Seocho Station, so it suits couple dates, family dinners and meetings.

How far is Vinovine from Seocho Station and Gyodae Station?

Vinovine in Seocho-dong is 1 minute by car or a 5-minute walk from Seocho Station, so it is easy to reach. It is also a 12-minute walk from Gyodae Station, which makes it a convenient Gyodae Station restaurant and a known Western spot in the Gyodae area.

Vinovine opening hours and days off

• Monday to Friday, 11:30–22:00
• Break time 14:00–18:00
• Last order 20:30
• Closed every Saturday and Sunday

Vinovine is a Seocho restaurant open for both lunch and dinner on weekdays, and reservations are a must.

Where do you park at Vinovine?

For parking, Vinovine lets you use the marked white spaces and a dedicated area next to the café, which is convenient. If there is no space, you can use the nearby Park Building parking lot or Seocho Kkotmaeul parking lot.

Inside Vinovine on the basement level, and the wine display

Vinovine is on the basement level, and jazz plays at the entrance, so you find yourself walking in as if enchanted. Reservations are required.

Wine lines both sides of the way down, and it is wine they actually sell. When you come down and go in, there are rooms, and a staff member comes to guide you. The wines Vinovine carries are on display.

The wine price and name are written on a white string, and if you can't see one, ask the staff.

Vinovine Room 07: can you bring kids?

The room I chose was Room 07. At Vinovine you are guided to a private room, so you can enjoy your meal in a private space, and if you need a baby chair, they will bring one. They also have a place prepared to hang coats and other clothes you don't need.

Vinovine menu and dinner course lineup

Today I booked the Vinovine dinner course. If you scan the QR code on the menu, you can see more wine information. The course is perfectly put together, from appetizers through the main to dessert.

What do the chicken liver cocoa choux and abalone tofu tart taste like?

The Vinovine dinner course starts with chicken liver cocoa choux, plus abalone and tofu. You eat the green leaf on top too, and it wasn't mint, but it had some kind of aromatic scent.

The black bits are whole peppercorns, and the mushroom and abalone add a chewy texture that contrasts with the tart shell, crisp like a cracker. The sauce inside, as I remember, was wasabi mixed with mayonnaise, and rather than the smell of the food itself, an overall nutty smell like old-fashioned jeonbyeong (a thin rice cracker?) dominated, so it worked as a light palate opener that got my appetite going.

This is the cocoa choux. Strictly speaking it should be called a cookie choux, but the dough on top isn't thick enough for that, so it felt more like a light appetite-opener than a dessert. The chicken liver gives a bitter taste first, and then a house-simmered fig spread behind it balances that bitterness, so you get a sweet-bitter-sweet-bitter flavor.

Appetizer: sea bream, Shine Muscat and tomato water

This is the sea bream, Shine Muscat grapes and tomato water served as a Vinovine appetizer. Pistachio powder is sprinkled on top, and thin sea bream is spread out flat and soaked with shallot, refreshingly sweet Shine Muscat flesh and tomato juice, so the bream had no fishy smell of its own.

It is a fish dish where the sweet aroma of Shine Muscat, less sour than vinegar, and the scent of pistachio come through here and there.

Appetizer: grilled scallop with chestnut sauce

Vinovine's second appetizer is scallop, topped with grilled scallop, sauce and mountain yam (ma). A sauce made from chestnut and white wine sits on top, and it is sprinkled with chestnut chips and powder.

The white foam has a dense texture, and when you think chestnut you think Bambamba (a Korean chestnut ice bar), but it wasn't like that at all; it was the nutty taste of autumn chestnuts. The yellow thing is a chestnut snack chip, and if you dip it in the foam, you keep the crunch while enjoying the chestnut's distinctive flavor, and a white yam really is hiding inside.

Fish course: gravlax salmon with lemon sabayon

For the real meal, the Vinovine dinner course brings fish first: gravlax salmon with lemon sabayon.

The salmon was slow-cured at low temperature with various spices, so the fishy smell is gone, and because of the lemon sabayon sauce the lemon aroma is strong, and the taste is rich with a tart lemon kick as well. It is a dish that suits being eaten with the crunchy asparagus served alongside, and I'm told the green sauce on top is mayonnaise mixed with wasabi. Among the toppings, the red thing is presumably dried raspberry, and it's sweet and sour, so you have to eat it together.

Is the cacio e pepe pasta salty?

Next came the pasta: pecorino, pepper, cacio e pepe pasta, topped with a white-style ragù of stir-fried beef and onion.

Vinovine's cacio e pepe was a bit salty for my taste. I don't usually go for salty food, so it seemed strongly seasoned to me, but it may be just right for the average person. They said the beef and onion were stir-fried, but it tasted like jangjorim (soy-braised beef), and the pasta came slightly undercooked rather than fully cooked, which I figured might be the authentic way. Because two cheeses go in, the difference in cheese flavor was clear.

Main: striploin steak with red wine red cabbage

The final main of the Vinovine course is striploin steak, served with striploin, Beni Haruka sweet potato, red cabbage and broccoli.

The striploin was cooked medium with a texture that wasn't too chewy, and I'm told the sauce is made from the meat juices rather than a store-bought demi-glace. It wasn't sticky, just really fresh. The red cabbage braised in red wine keeps a tangy taste rather than a bitter one, so try it when the striploin starts to feel rich. The brown powder next to it seems to be injeolmi (roasted rice-cake powder) mixed with pepper, and the flavor changes a little each time you dip.

Dessert: hojicha ice cream, warabi mochi, brown sugar

Vinovine's dessert was hojicha ice cream, warabi mochi (jelly-like rice cake) and brown sugar. I expected the warabi mochi to be white and couldn't find it, but after eating it coated in injeolmi powder, I thought it was a great idea.

The hojicha ice cream tastes like milk tea, but it looks like myeongnan-jeot (salted pollock roe), so at first I didn't think it was dessert. It's cold and chewy like gelato, and eat it with all three on top: the cookie, the nuts and the warabi mochi.

Vinovine verdict: house-made sourdough and a carefully made course

The bread that came before the main is sourdough made in-house at Vinovine, and it did a great job cleansing and reviving the palate midway.

Vinovine at Seocho Station is a special place to enjoy a meal and dessert together, and a Seocho-dong restaurant that suits dates, meetings and group dinners. Thanks to the upscale atmosphere and carefully made course, I recommend it as fine dining near Seocho Station. Being able to taste things where every ingredient is made by hand was another kind of gourmet experience.