Gongdeok Korean restaurant date night with peanut-tofu shrimp: Usu

I was looking for a good-vibes dining spot in Seoul to take my partner out for a date after a while, and I found somewhere that really made us feel properly treated. It's such a great spot for a special day or anniversary that I wanted to introduce it. Today's pick is Usu, a premium dining restaurant in Gongdeok where you can enjoy top-tier food in a fully private space.

How to find Usu and where to park: Gongdeok Station Exit 2, 3 hours free

Usu is located at Basement level 2, Unit 201, Lotte Castle President Commercial Building, 109 Mapo-daero, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea, open daily 11:00–22:00 with a break time from 15:00–17:00.

It's right in front of Gongdeok Station Exit 2, so it's very easy to find.

There's a spacious parking lot in the building, and they even offer 3 hours of free parking, so you can visit without any parking worries.

What are Usu's private dining rooms like?

Usu is open year-round, and above all, it's a Gongdeok room restaurant where every single seat is a private room.

Once you step through the door, you don't have to worry about anyone else's eyes at all — it's perfect for a Gongdeok date spot where you can just have your own time together.

The layout lets you chat comfortably over dinner inside the room, which also makes it a great pick for spending meaningful time on an important day.

The interior itself is so calm and clean that you feel at ease the whole time you're there — a genuinely good-atmosphere restaurant.

On top of that, it's corkage-free, so it's perfect for bringing your favorite wine or liquor to pair with the course!

What comes with Usu's Dinner B course?

We ordered the Dinner B course that day. Before the course properly began, the staff brought out the fresh ingredients used in the meal on a showing tray and explained each one in detail.

It felt like careful attention from the very start, and each time a dish came out, the staff kindly pointed out the ingredients' characteristics and how to eat it, so knowing what I was eating made the experience so much richer.

Ugye jinjuk (beef and egg rice porridge)

A rich porridge simmered with hanwoo (Korean beef) bone broth and chicken stock as its base.

Loaded with nurungji (scorched rice), shiitake mushrooms and white wood ear mushrooms, it's clean and nutty in flavor, opening the meal gently.

Four one-bite dishes: bulgogi sando, sweet shrimp with gim bugak, lobster, scallop and clam

The bite-sized dishes came out beautifully plated, adding a visual treat to the meal.

First, the bulgogi sando — one bite and the rich truffle cream cheese aroma fills your mouth, really charming.

The sweet shrimp and gim bugak (fried seaweed) dish is grilled seaweed brushed with pollock roe, topped with fried abalone-liver rice, sweet shrimp, and a refreshing yuzu sauce — the tartness of the yuzu sauce gives it a really nice balance.

The lobster is packed with lobster and vegetables inside a squid-ink and black sesame shell, finished with gochujang mayonnaise for a rich flavor.

The scallop and clam dish has grilled scallop and clam cream sauce inside a crispy brick pastry roll, getting deeper and nuttier the more you chew.

Shiitake shrimp and zucchini in peanut-tofu sauce

The plating stands out, with peanut tofu sauce and fragrant chamnamul (wild herb) oil spread wide across the plate.

You eat the shiitake shrimp together with the zucchini, and the nuttiness and umami rising from the peanut tofu sauce base and chamnamul oil are just the best.

Hanwoo yukhoe (beef tartare) with gamtae seaweed

A dish where you wrap fragrant gamtae (seaweed) around crispy fried nurungji, fresh yukhoe (beef tartare), and pickled chosukjam, giving you a variety of textures in every bite.

Jeju tilefish

Crispy on the outside, moist on the inside grilled tilefish, poured over shallowly with neungi mushroom broth.

With the subtle straw aroma lingering in the grilled tilefish, paired with crispy nurungji and the deep umami of the neungi mushrooms, it's a dish that keeps your spoon busy.

1++ hanwoo tteokgalbi (grilled beef patty)

Tteokgalbi (grilled short rib patty) with a subtle smoky aroma, served with crunchy celery on top. It's packed with juices, getting richer with every bite.

Abalone with five-color gardenia noodles

Gardenia-colored noodles loaded with bracken, seasoned chamnamul, black sesame radish strips, shiitake mushrooms, perilla leaves, and abalone.

The gentle umami and freshness together cleanse your palate.

The seasonal fish pot rice is shown to you first, then mixed well for easy eating before being served alongside the main spread.

1++ hanwoo omakase on a personal grill and a seasonal fish pot-rice spread

Finally, the highlight of the course — the 1++ grade hanwoo grilling course — is prepared.

The marbling is so intact you can tell the quality is fresh just by looking at it!

Each person gets their own personal grill, and you put the hanwoo on with vegetables to cook it yourself to your preferred doneness.

As the meat grills on the tabletop grill, the juices seep out, and one bite in, the tender texture was just artful.

Backed up by a deep, rich hanwoo seaweed soup, gat kimchi, myeongi namul, and three kinds of salted seafood, this clean spread really lets you feel Usu's reputation as a top hanwoo restaurant in Gongdeok.

The seasonal fish pot rice also had the rice grains well infused with nutty flavor, making it great to pair with the rich seaweed soup and side dishes.

Dessert at Usu

The dessert that closed out the meal was corn ice cream. Sweet and nutty corn ice cream topped with cream cheese and tangy apricot, served alongside green and black sponge cake — really charming. A perfect course to the very end.

Final verdict: a Gongdeok dining spot worth returning to for an anniversary

This was a place where you can spend relaxed, meaningful time in a private space, with a polished course paired with flashy ingredient showings. Whether it's a formal occasion or a day you want to celebrate with someone special, give Usu a try for high-level food : )