Gongdeok Seoul Korean restaurant with refillable seaweed soup: Usu

Usu Gongdeok is a place where you can enjoy a hanwoo (Korean beef) course in a private room — perfect for a day when you want a quiet meal. Whether you're looking for a special anniversary date, a family gathering, a good-atmosphere meet-the-parents restaurant in Seoul, or a company dinner spot, I'd strongly recommend it 🥰👍 Since you get to eat in your own separate space, you can chat and eat at your own pace without worrying about anyone around you — so here's the review!

Where is Usu Gongdeok, and where do you park?

The closest way in is Exit 2 of Gongdeok Station — Usu connects directly to the shopping complex, so you never have to step outside. Good accessibility! One thing to note about parking though: you need to use the shopping complex's own parking lot, not the hotel or officetel parking lot. (Free parking is 3 hours.)

If you take the escalator down to B2, pass Seonhyangjeong Shabu Shabu, and head toward Muscle Care Pilates, Usu is right next door. If you take the elevator, ride the one for the shopping complex down to B2, turn left toward Chinchin Wine Shop, and keep going all the way to the end — Usu is next to Muscle Care Pilates.

Inside Usu's private rooms: the four-seat room

Coming down to B2, you'll find Usu, a Gongdeok restaurant with a sleek, upscale exterior. The glass front lets you see right in, and the clean, polished mood got my expectations up before I even walked in hahaha.

Once inside, they check your reservation and guide you to your seat. Even the passage before the room itself was decorated tastefully and cleanly, so the overall atmosphere was great 🌿✨

Above all, every single seat is a private room! It's structured so that every table is its own enclosed room. This is what the 4-seat room looks like~🌟 The room we were assigned was also a 4-seater.

The table was already set for our reserved party size, and barley tea was ready to drink. There was a separate coat hanger inside the room, and each room had its own air conditioner, so even on a hot day you could eat in comfort haha.

Usu Gongdeok menu and course options

Besides the lunch and dinner courses, there were also à la carte items, which seemed handy if you wanted to add on anything extra.

They even had a hanwoo (Korean beef) cake as an event menu item, which seemed great to order for an anniversary or special occasion haha. There were also four bite-sized dishes plus whisky, highballs, and more — good for adding on to your main course depending on your taste!

We went with Dinner B course (90g) 🌟

Dinner B course begins with the ingredient showing

Before the meal started, they brought out a display box showing us the ingredients that would appear in the course! Everything looked super fresh, and they even added dry ice to make the presentation dramatic — fun just to watch 😆

Beef and chicken jinjuk (thick rice porridge)

The first course was beef-and-chicken jinjuk (진죽, thick rice porridge) — a porridge deeply infused with hanwoo bone broth and chicken stock, topped with all kinds of garnishes: nurungji (scorched rice), scallion crust, shiitake mushroom, asparagus, and white wood ear mushroom.

The porridge itself was smooth and warm, but the garnishes added varied texture throughout. It warmed up the stomach gently and was a perfect, easy way to start the course haha.

Four bite-sized starters at Usu

Second up were four bite-sized dishes 💓 They looked so pretty it almost felt a shame to eat them 🫢💖

• Scallop and clam: seared scallop on crisp brick pastry with an aburi clam cream sauce, apple, onion, and gamtae (seaweed) powder — refreshing yet nutty
• Bulgogi sandwich: fluffy brioche with hanwoo bulgogi, mushroom, truffle cream cheese, apple purée, hanwoo jerky powder, and porcini powder — rich and full-flavored
• Sweet shrimp and gim bugak (crispy seaweed): grilled seaweed brushed with pollock roe, topped with fried abalone-liver rice, sweet shrimp, and yuzu sauce — a wave of ocean flavor in one bite
• Lobster taco: squid-ink tortilla with sous vide lobster, tomato, and a smoky gochujang mayo sauce — spicy-sweet with a fun twist

They recommended eating in this order: scallop & clam → bulgogi sandwich → sweet shrimp & gim bugak → lobster taco. Each one had its own charm and all four were delicious haha.

Of the four, our favorite was the bulgogi sandwich haha.

Shiitake mushroom with shrimp, and young zucchini

Next was the shiitake shrimp and zucchini dish! A-grade shiitake mushrooms stuffed with shrimp, alongside zucchini wrapped around tofu-and-aged-kimchi filling and golden enoki mushroom.

It came with peanut tofu sauce and Chamnamul (wild herb) oil. As instructed, I ate the shiitake shrimp first and then mixed in the sauce — the umami really came alive!

My husband said the shiitake shrimp was so good and really loved it, and even I, who doesn't usually enjoy mushrooms, ate it happily!

Hanwoo yukhoe (beef tartare) with gamtae seaweed

Next up was hanwoo yukhoe (beef tartare) with gamtae (seaweed)! On top of the yukhoe were house-made aioli sauce, fried nurungji, pickled chojasam root, and cured egg.

You're meant to take the gamtae on the far left and roll it up like gimbap (seaweed rice roll) to eat! The savory beef combined with the aroma of the gamtae was such a great pairing, and the crunchy fried nurungji added fun bursts of texture along the way!

It filled the mouth with umami and really primed my appetite for what came next (⁎⁍̴̀﹃ ⁍̴́⁎)♡

Jeju okdom (tilefish)

Next was tilefish! Crisply grilled tilefish came with barley-and-Chamnamul rice and mullet roe, and a neungi mushroom broth served separately. It arrived without the broth at first — they pour the neungi broth right at the table!

Once poured, the deep aroma of the neungi broth added layers to the clean-tasting tilefish and barley rice, making it much richer 💓 Eating it ochazuke-style with the warm broth poured over felt totally different from everything before — great fun 😆👍

1++ hanwoo tteokgalbi (grilled short rib patty)

Next was 1++ hanwoo tteokgalbi (grilled short rib patty)! It came with crushed pistachio, celeriac purée, shiitake duxelles, white balsamic sauce, and basil oil.

Rather than eating the tteokgalbi as is, they suggested mashing it and mixing it with the garnishes and sauce — the juicy patty combined smoothly with the bright, nutty flavors and was really delicious haha. You could still taste the tteokgalbi's own flavor while enjoying it in a fresh new way with the garnishes!

Abalone with five-color gardenia noodles

Next was abalone five-color gardenia noodles! Topped with abalone, black sesame julienned radish, bracken fern, Chamnamul, and perilla leaf, served with gamtae dressing and mustard-garlic sauce 🍜

Mixing the sauce evenly through the noodles gave a spicy-yet-nutty balance that cleaned up the palate nicely 💚 It was a perfect palate cleanser before the main course, and the further the course went, the more I felt how well each dish was thought through 😋

Main course: 1++ hanwoo omakase on a personal grill, seasonal fish pot rice, and the rice set

Finally, the main course!!✨ Three things arrived together at once: personal-grill 1++ hanwoo omakase, seasonal fish pot rice, and a rice set (๑´ސު｀๑)

First, the beef was prepared as 1++ sirloin — grilling the meat and vegetables golden-brown on our personal tabletop grill gave that melt-in-your-mouth softness haha. Grill, grill, grill 🔥🔥🔥 The mushrooms, zucchini, and asparagus were also grilled well and enjoyed alongside the meat.

The mustard leaf kimchi, wild garlic leaf pickle, and seasoned fish roe that came with it paired really well with the beef — every bite with these sides was such a great combination!

As for the seasonal fish pot rice, they gave us a quick preview of its look while the gardenia noodles were being served, then plated it out to eat alongside the rice set. There was hanwoo on top of the pot rice too — yum, so good haha.

The rice set came with the seasonal fish pot rice and hanwoo seaweed soup, and the seaweed soup was loaded with beef too — the hot broth was so satisfying! By the way, rice, soup, and side dishes are all refillable, so you never have to worry about not having enough haha. My husband refilled the seaweed soup once more! 😆👍ㅋㅋㅋ

Scraped the bowls clean down to the last bite — the main course left us really full and happy!

Dessert: corn ice cream and jasmine tea

For the truly final course, dessert, we got corn ice cream made with corn cream cheese, apricot, corn crumble, sponge cake, green tangerine cream sauce, coconut chips, and dill, along with jasmine tea.

The nutty flavor of corn combined with the tartness of apricot and green tangerine cream sauce made for a sweet yet refreshing way to finish the meal haha.

The jasmine tea came with a single ice cube frozen with tea leaves inside — that level of detail kept the elegant feeling going right to the end 🧊✨

Is Usu Gongdeok good for a family gathering or meeting the in-laws?

Overall, you could feel the care in every single dish, and the course composition kept things interesting from start to the last dessert — never a dull moment! Above all, since every seat is a private room, we could enjoy the meal in a quiet, relaxed atmosphere :)

From the food to the space, the whole place had a well-rounded, upscale atmosphere that fit a special occasion nicely 🥰 If you're looking for a good-atmosphere Korean restaurant in Gongdeok, I'd recommend Usu Gongdeok!(•̀ᴗ•́)و ̑̑