Nine-dish ₩120,000 dinner at a Seocho restaurant: Bistro Chai Plus

It's been a while since I went somewhere with great atmosphere for a bit of a family meeting with my boyfriend, so we headed to Bistro Chai Plus! Every seat is a private room, so it was so easy to talk comfortably (perfect for meeting-the-parents dinners or business meetings 👍🏻). Every single dish was delicious so let me write this review right away 😉

What kind of restaurant is Bistro Chai Plus?

• 🚩 Dining available in private rooms (no room charge)
• 🚩 Course meals with varied compositions
• 🚩 ₩10,000 corkage with a wine purchase from the 1F wine shop
• 🚩 7-minute walk from Naebang Station / parking tower available
• 🚗 Free parking in the parking tower (free valet available)

Tenuta wine shop downstairs and ₩10,000 corkage

This Naebang Station favorite, Bistro Chai Plus, sits on the 2nd floor of the building, and there's a wine shop called Tenuta on the 1st floor! They stock a whopping 1,000 varieties of wine, so the range of choices was huge too — plus, if you buy wine here, corkage is just ₩10,000 (best value ever 👍🏻). From non-alcoholic to natural wines, prices range widely starting from the ₩30,000s, so it's great for casual pairing.

Every seat is a private room, so conversation stays easy

Climb the stairs inside the wine shop and you reach the Bistro Chai Plus restaurant on the 2nd floor. It's entirely made up of private rooms, so dining privately was really nice ➡️ and the atmosphere inside the rooms is so good too — haha 😆 It was the perfect space for meeting the parents, family meals, blind dates, and any time you want to talk quietly 🫶🏻

Bistro Chai Plus course lineup and prices

This Naebang Station favorite, Bistro Chai Plus, has two lunch courses (₩58,000 / ₩78,000) and two dinner courses (₩120,000 / ₩150,000). That day I booked the ₩120,000 dinner course, and the composition was seriously packed! The à la carte menu looked delicious too, so I'm planning to come back again 😉

Now let me show you in detail everything I ate on the dinner course ⬇️⬇️⬇️

All nine dishes in the ₩120,000 dinner course

1. Caesar salad

First dish, Caesar salad. Eating it with romaine lettuce and thick-cut bacon really got my appetite going, haha. The sauce drizzled on top had great umami too — total satisfaction starting from the salad!

2. Seasonal soup: potato soup

Second dish, the seasonal soup. This time it was potato soup, smooth and rich enough to make you go 🤤. The subtle, clean flavor was impressively delicious! My mouth's watering just remembering it, haha.

3. Sous vide abalone with grilled mushrooms

Third dish, sous vide abalone and grilled mushrooms. The sous vide-cooked abalone was so tender it's the kind of flavor you'd fight over while sharing! Dipping it in the savory, rich innard sauce went perfectly with the abalone. We also cleaned up every bit of the morel and hen-of-the-woods mushrooms that came alongside 👍🏻

4. Buckwheat noodles with perilla oil

Fourth dish, perilla oil buckwheat noodles (deulgireum memil makguksu). I'd seen a lot of praise for this buckwheat noodle dish in reviews, and now I totally get why ✌🏻 It was the most upscale and healthy-tasting perilla oil noodles I've had in my life! Not overly seasoned yet still this delicious ㅠㅠ — truly a moving flavor 🥹

5. Herb chicken

Fifth dish, herb chicken (hyangchae dak). Moist chicken paired with fresh herbs was clean and refreshing! My boyfriend said this was his favorite — the flavor balance was perfect 👍🏻 It came in three pieces, and by the last piece I was almost too sad to eat it ㅠㅠ Turns out it's also available à la carte, so I'll be back to eat it again 🐶

6. Grilled sablefish

Sixth dish, grilled sablefish. Golden-brown and crispy, this grilled sablefish was my boyfriend's #1 pick 🔥 Marinated in three kinds of doenjang (fermented soybean paste), it had a subtle savory depth and umami. And it was totally crisp-outside, tender-inside! The skin was crispy while the flesh melted in your mouth. Paired with the peas for a bursting texture — absolutely delicious 😊

7. Basil sorbet

Seventh dish, basil sorbet. This was a palate cleanser before the steak arrived. It was my first time having sorbet made from basil, and it was so intriguing...! The basil aroma spreads subtly, but it was more refreshing than expected — total satisfaction 👍🏻 Now heading into the beef course with a beating heart!

8. No.9 Korean beef steak

Eighth dish, No.9 Korean beef steak. True to being a premium steak grilled from top-grade Korean beef, it melted in my mouth! It melted so gently I kept gasping the whole time I ate 🥹 Paired with grilled vegetables and mashed potatoes alongside the juicy steak, it was a rich, satisfying combination~~~

9. Red bean bingsu (shaved ice) for dessert

Ninth dish, red bean bingsu (patbingsu) for dessert. Apparently the food lineup changes each season, and in the summer, red bean bingsu is the dessert! On top of the smooth milk shaved ice sat red beans that seemed slow-simmered as if straight from the countryside, giving a clean red bean flavor 😆 Even the finishing dessert was exactly to my taste — so satisfying.

Is the ₩120,000 dinner course worth it?

On my way out after the meal, I even spotted an autograph from actor Ryu Seung-ryong 🐶 ➡️ Truly a fine dining favorite near Naebang Station! That was my thorough review of the dinner course at Bistro Chai Plus. Every single dish was delicious, and parking was so convenient too, so I want to come back again ❤️ Especially since it's all private rooms, I highly recommend this place nearby for business meetings or meeting-the-parents dinners~~~