Private-room restaurant lunch in Seocho: Bistro Chai Plus

A private-room lunch reserved near Naebang Station

For a company lunch, I finally went out to eat and booked Bistro Chai Plus, five minutes from Naebang Station. I reserved the earliest Lunch Course slot, 11:30 AM, through Catchtable. Reservations are available through Catchtable and Naver Booking.

I had no idea there was such an upscale restaurant near the office. Naebang Station had always felt like a gray commuter neighborhood to me, but I was about to have a luxurious lunch.

The building entrance had the signature lunch and dinner course lineup posted out front. So excited 🤍

Bistro Chai Plus is on the second floor. To reach the restaurant, you go up through the wine shop on the first floor. There were so many wines, and I even spotted some cheaper than online! Corkage is available too, so wine lovers could pick one themselves and pair it with their meal upstairs.

An all-private-room atmosphere

Every seat is in a private room. They also have group seating for up to 20 people. Is this where rich people hold their gatherings..? 🥹 I was newly amazed that a place like this exists near Naebang Station.

The room was neat and calm. It looked like they could open the doors at the back to seat a larger group, too.

Lunch Course 1 and 2: only the mains differ

There are three lunch courses and three dinner courses on the menu.

LUNCH 48 and LUNCH 58. We ordered Lunch Course 1 and Lunch Course 2. Everything in the two courses is the same except for the main: Lunch Course 1 comes with grilled sablefish, while Lunch Course 2 has lamb chops. It was nice to check what the next course would be as we ate.

It feels like I should be properly dressed. Everything is so beautifully composed.

Shared course dishes

First, let's start with the ricotta salad that came with both courses. Why is ricotta cheese so good.. 🤍 It was so soft. The cinnamon dressing gave the salad a gentle cinnamon fragrance, and it worked beautifully.

Next was the seasonal soup: cauliflower soup topped with prosciutto. The salty prosciutto seasoned the soup so well that I scraped the bowl clean.

Next, black sesame gangjeong (sweet glazed fried chicken). What is this? The chicken thigh just melts away..

The black sesame aroma was so lovely, and the sweetness was not excessive at all—exactly my kind of dish.

Perilla oil buckwheat makguksu (cold buckwheat noodles) is so pretty.

Once I mixed it, the perilla oil aroma really bloomed. So nutty. That was the shared portion of the lunch course.

Grilled sablefish and lamb chops on a hot stone plate

The first main was grilled sablefish. The fish was unbelievably tender—I was curious how they cooked it. I had no idea sablefish could be this delicious. Even the peas were nutty and tasty, almost like potatoes.

The second main was lamb chops. They melted butter on a hot stone plate and cooked the lamb on it, so that buttery aroma hits you first. The plate stays hot, so you can set the lamb back on it briefly and cook it a little more to your liking.

The lamb chops were delicious with the accompanying vegetables and a little wasabi.

Milk bingsu dessert with peach

Dessert was the final course. I heard someone passing outside and wondered if they were bringing bingsu, and sure enough, it was patbingsu (shaved ice with red beans) with a slice of peach.

The milk bingsu was freshly shaved, lightly flavored rather than overly sweet, and perfect for cleansing the palate. It was more filling than I expected, so I was quite full.

Allow a full two hours for the meal

The food did come out a little slowly, so I worried that the flow of the meal might be broken. But when we mentioned it, they adjusted the serving pace to match how quickly we were eating. I recommend allowing around two hours for the meal. Since it is a course meal, it is best to go with plenty of time.

If you are looking for a place to enjoy a lunch course near Naebang Station, I would recommend Bistro Chai Plus. The room dining makes conversation easy, and the food lineup is substantial, so it seems like a nice choice for a blind date, a meeting between families, or a date.