Free 3-hour parking near Gongdeok Station, hanwoo Lunch C 80g: Usu

Usu, a private-room restaurant near Gongdeok Station: location and parking

Looking for a good private-room restaurant in Seoul for a sangyeonrye (a formal meeting between two families before a wedding)? How about Usu, a well-known spot in Gongdeok? It's right in front of Gongdeok Station Exit 2, so it's super accessible.

Parking is available in the building's lot and it's free for 3 hours — no limit on the number of cars.

Walk straight ahead from the B2 escalator and you'll see it right there.

All private rooms — a party of two gets a four-person room

It's a private restaurant where every room is its own separate space. I couldn't get a photo since it was in use, but there was also a spacious room that would be great for a sangyeonrye.

Since there were two of us, I booked ahead and we were assigned a four-person room. Even among the same four-person rooms, the interiors differed slightly from one to another!

Lunch C course, 80g, ₩79,000

Since the course is the signature offering, I took a photo of the lunch and dinner course lineups and prices.

Lunch C course (80g), ₩79,000 — I went with the 80g option from the weekday Lunch C course.

First they showed us the ingredients that would be used, like shiitake mushrooms and truffle. The 1++ hanwoo (Korean beef) that would later come out as the main looked absolutely gorgeous. Wait for it, friends — the course started rolling out dish by dish.

1. Beef and chicken porridge (jinjuk)

First up was the beef-and-chicken jinjuk (thick porridge). As the name suggests, it's made with hanwoo bone broth and chicken stock, so the flavor that comes through is genuinely rich.

The garnish included nurungji (crispy scorched rice), scallion crust, shiitake mushroom, asparagus, and white wood ear mushroom, so subtle vegetable aromas came through and made the porridge's savory flavor stand out even more.

2. Three bite-sized dishes

The plating was so pretty I couldn't not take a photo. Three bite-sized dishes came out, and I tasted each one as it was explained to me.

The first dish to try is the bulgogi sandwich. Hanwoo bulgogi, button mushroom duxelles, and truffle cream cheese sit on top of a brioche bun. The truffle aroma was subtle but paired well with the meat.

The second bite is mainly built around scallop and clam. Grilled scallop, foie gras, apple, and onion sit inside a brick pastry shell with a clam cream sauce. The powder on top is gamtae (sea lettuce) powder, and you could tell a lot of care went into the texture and aroma.

The third bite combines sweet shrimp with gimbugak (fried seasoned seaweed). Fried abalone-innard rice adds texture, topped with yuzu sauce and sweet shrimp, served alongside grilled gimbugak brushed with pollack roe. This was personally my favorite dish of the whole course — the yuzu sauce hits at the end and cuts through everything nicely, so I really enjoyed it.

3. Shiitake shrimp and zucchini

Next up is the dish my friend enjoyed most — a premium shiitake shrimp and zucchini dish.

On the left, tofu, aged kimchi, and golden enoki mushroom are wrapped in zucchini. On the right, the shiitake dish is minced shrimp topped with shiitake mushroom and fried.

I especially loved the sauce here — the base sauce is peanut tofu sauce drizzled with wild chamnamul (aster) oil. It was so good I scraped the plate clean with my spoon, haha.

4. Abalone five-color gardenia noodles

This dish is gardenia-yellow noodles in a broth seasoned with sea lettuce dressing and a mustard-garlic sauce. The garnish — julienned black sesame radish, bracken fern, shiitake mushroom, seasoned chamnamul, perilla leaf, and abalone — seems designed to represent the 'five colors' in the name.

The julienned black sesame radish gave a crunchy, nutty texture, and the abalone was especially fresh — plump and firm with no fishy smell at all.

The portion was generous for a course noodle dish, so it was a filling meal even at lunchtime.

5. Main (grilled hanwoo and rice table)

The rice in the main rice table is sea bream pot rice. They show it to you first for a photo, then debone the fish, mix it into the rice, portion it out, and serve. Along with a rice table of hanwoo seaweed soup, mustard leaf kimchi, pickled chili peppers, and salted seafood, they bring out a charcoal grill for cooking the meat.

And finally! The main dish — 1++ hanwoo, 80g — arrived with zucchini, mushrooms, and bell pepper.

You get your own personal grill, so you can cook it to your liking. Tongs are provided so you grill the meat yourself.

The sea bream pot rice isn't heavily seasoned, so it goes great either with the side dishes or with the meat. I was already full but it hit exactly right, so I finished a whole bowl. By the way, if you ask for a rice refill, they'll apparently give you plain white rice!

Personally, I recommend dipping the meat in coarse salt with a touch of wasabi. Also, don't overcook it or it'll get tough — grill it just until the pink fades for the best flavor!

6. Dessert

After a filling main course, it's dessert time. When I visited, the dessert theme was corn.

It's a dessert with corn ice cream, corn cream cheese, and corn crumble, and even though it's all corn flavor, the textures varied a lot. The bits of apricot scattered throughout were also a nice kick. Eating it with the sponge cake sitting in a green citrus cream sauce gave a fresh, moist finish.

How was it as a sangyeonrye restaurant?

Laying out everything I ate in one shot, it was such a great course meal, from the plating right through to the taste.

With private rooms and parking all sorted, it really does feel like a great place for a family meal or a sangyeonrye. I'd also recommend the lunch course for something a bit more casual!