NYC’s Golden Diner Expands With NY Kimchi and Golden HOF

Sam Yoo’s two-part project pays tribute to his family’s restaurant — at the same address.

By Chris Crowley, senior writer at Grub Street who covers the people who work and eat in New York City’s restaurants

Chefs Sam Yoo and Matt Mobilio in the space that will soon become Golden HOF and NY Kimchi. Photo: Jeremy Liebman

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When the chef Sam Yoo visited South Korea for the first time in 15 years, he was dismayed to see the country’s hofs — local affordable pubs — disappearing. “The last time I went, they were everywhere,” he says. He’d read that they were “a dying thing” but was still surprised to see them go. “I love them the same way I love diners,” he says. “I didn’t grow up in Korea, but we had hofs in Flushing and Bayside. These places are so egalitarian; anyone can come in.”

He’s honoring their tradition with his own spot, Golden HOF, across the street from Rockefeller Center. The menu of anju, or drinking food, will include crispy chive-and-ikura pancakes, “krudite” with ssamjang aïoli, spicy carbonara rice cakes, disco fries topped with the Korean army stew budae jjigae, and — of course — Korean fried chicken served four ways: sauceless, soy glazed, with cumin and Sichuan peppercorn, or General Sam’s, a garlicky nod to General Tso’s.

He has also installed a hanok ceiling, taken from traditional Korean architecture. Yoo describes the look as “lots of warm tones, beautiful benches and banquettes.” There’s a chef’s counter by the open kitchen, with seating for six, and a private dining room that can host parties of 12 to 20. Past those is a staircase that leads to the other half of this project: NY Kimchi, a subterranean Korean steakhouse.

The mood will be more serene and less cocktail-focused than the upstairs bar, but the Korean American sensibilities will come through in oysters Rockefeller with kimchee butter, a chopped salad with gochujang-marinated pork, and a house salad that takes its cues from takeout sushi: “You know your ginger-carrot-miso dressing that everyone loves?” Yoo asks. “We make a banging-ass version of that.”

Other dishes are more straightforwardly Korean, like the japchae (wok-fired noodles with mushrooms and vegetables) and soondubu. Several cuts of meat will be grilled KBBQ style, while others will come out of the kitchen, like a dry-aged T-bone with brown-butter doenjang. And Yoo will draw on the flavors of classic Korean dishes across a selection of crudo. Tuna tartare with pineapple and black-bean-dusted rice crackers is based on a typical Korean Chinese pairing: tangsuyuk, or sweet-and-sour pork, and jjajangmyeon, the noodle dish. “It’s a bit of a mindfuck, but it’s awesome,” he says. Sujeonggwa — cinnamon punch — is the reference for his kampachi with charred persimmon, cinnamon, and pine nuts. Scallop comes with a vinaigrette based on the sauce for ojingeo bokkeum.

The menu is entirely new, but if the NY Kimchi name rings a bell, that’s because it was, until recently, an all-you-can-eat KBBQ spot operated by Yoo’s parents at the same address — though there was never a long-standing plan for him to take over the family restaurant. “It’s just more a matter of circumstance,” he says. From the start, he wanted to open more restaurants, but his plans had always been to do so in Chinatown. After Golden Diner’s success, Yoo hadn’t necessarily planned on expanding uptown. But after a downtown lease fell through, he started spending some time in midtown, brainstorming ideas that could work in the area, and thought, Why not? “I hope people understand that these are very Korean concepts,” Yoo says, “and that the innovation comes from the fact that they’re being viewed through a Korean American chef’s lens.”