Steak restaurant in Seongsu with wine-paired lunch: OX Live Fire Grill

A restaurant where I enjoyed wonderful dining along with a spectacular fire show.

When choosing a place for an anniversary meal, the taste of the food matters, but so does how memorable the atmosphere will be. OX Live Fire Grill Seongsu lets you enjoy a course meal while watching a wood fire blaze and the cooking happen right in front of you. It's an atmosphere you can't get at an ordinary restaurant, so it stuck with me and is a great spot for an anniversary meal.

Where is OX Live Fire Grill Seongsu, and how do reservations and parking work?

OX Live Fire Grill Seongsu is tucked inside, toward Exit 3 of Seongsu Station. It's open daily from 12:00 to 22:00 and works by reservation. We booked through Naver Reservation. The location is a bit awkward to reach on foot, so I'd suggest a bus or a car.

This is the entrance. There's a parking space right next to it, so coming by car was easy. On the left side of the building in the photo there's a parking spot with a barrier, and when we visited the barrier was up, so we could park without asking anyone.

Interior and bar seating around the open grill at OX Live Fire Grill Seongsu

The first thing you notice when you walk in is the long bar-style seating and the open grill behind it. From every seat you can watch the food being prepared, and you get a vivid view of the fire performance.

The table setting. Water is served as bottled water.

This is the view from my seat. It felt so fresh to have wood burning right in front of where I sat. Have I ever eaten while watching a fire roar indoors? I don't think so. It was quite impressive, and so memorable that it feels like the identity of OX Live Fire Grill Seongsu.

OX Live Fire Grill Seongsu lunch course and wine pairing price

Lunch at OX Live Fire Grill Seongsu is 5 courses. The 2-glass wine pairing at lunch is ₩28,000 per person, and the corkage charge is ₩30,000 per bottle. We came for lunch. There were options to add lobster and truffle, and drinks include bottled beer, soju, cocktails, whisky, tequila and more.

We only did the pairing for one person. The first wine was a white, easy to sip before the main arrived. The fresh character typical of Chardonnay went well with the dishes early in the course.

First course: garlic marble soup

The first dish was a warm garlic marble soup. It has a potato base with confit garlic and black garlic oil, and it was a gentle, easygoing starter.

Flambadou fire show and Hanwoo cow beef tartare

While the second dish was being prepared, there was a performance with a tool I'd never seen before. It's a cooking method called flambadou, where butter or fat is melted on a heated tool and drizzled over to add flavor. In person it looks really spectacular.

The second dish was Hanwoo (Korean beef) cow beef tartare with daily bread. Before the finished dish arrives, they show you the whole thing once, which felt like proper fine dining and I liked it. The tartare was excellent too. Putting the tartare and sauce on crispy toasted bread, the soft raw beef and the crunchy bread made a lovely contrast in texture.

Wood-fired mains: Hanwoo striploin steak and lamb

Even the preparation of the main was out of the ordinary. We could watch the meat being cooked over a big wood fire and grill, and seeing it cook over strong heat, you can't help but look forward to the main plate.

They showed us the nicely grilled meat before plating. Lunch was almost full that day, so maybe that's why we got to see a considerable amount of meat.

I quite liked the garnish served with the main too. Personally, the mashed potatoes spread underneath were really delicious, and the smooth texture was so good that I'd have ordered more if I could.

The herbs that go on top of the steak are scented with a torch once before being served. The meat is a Hanwoo striploin steak, and lamb comes out alongside it, so a lamb sauce is served too. Maybe because it's grilled so well over strong heat, you get a high-quality Hanwoo steak that melts in your mouth.

The meat quality was satisfying beyond words, and midway they gave us more of the meat left over from plating, so we could eat quite generously. The combination with the garnish, built on mashed potatoes with mushrooms and namul (seasoned greens), was especially wonderful.

When the main steak came out, the second wine pairing, a red, arrived with it. Unlike the light white from earlier, it was a style of red that goes well with meat.

Saffron vongole spaghettini and affogato dessert

After the meat came the saffron vongole spaghettini. The noodles, colored with saffron, caught my eye first, and moving from the meat-focused courses to a pasta with the seafood flavor of vongole (clams) balanced the whole course perfectly. The springy noodles were good, and the taste of the pasta was excellent too, not too salty and built around savory depth.

Last is an affogato, with chocolate and nuts coated on the rim of the cup. It was a perfect palate cleanser to finish.

What stood out most at OX Live Fire Grill Seongsu?

The most memorable thing at OX Live Fire Grill Seongsu was, of course, the fire performance that kept going right before my eyes. Eating a course in a space with a wood fire burning was a first for me, and since you can watch a great fire performance even while the dishes are being made, it felt less like coming just to eat and more like watching a show.

The restroom is also inside the restaurant, and it's clean and easy to use, which is a plus.

Is OX Live Fire Grill Seongsu worth it for an anniversary steak lunch?

OX Live Fire Grill Seongsu doesn't stop at serving tasty food. You also get to experience the wood fire, the open grill and cooking performances like flambadou, which left a memory clearly different from other restaurants. If you love steak and wine and want a slightly different, memorable meal, it's a Seongsu steak restaurant worth visiting.

We didn't bring our own wine, so I have no photos, but if you do pay corkage they decant it stylishly, so I think it would make drinking wine even more enjoyable. The atmosphere was new to us too, so we found it fascinating throughout the meal. There was so much to see, not only the finished dishes but the process of making them, which made it a meal that stays in memory longer.

For a slightly special day like a birthday or anniversary, when you want a memorable dining experience rather than just a tasty meal, I think OX Live Fire Grill Seongsu is a good place to visit.