Hwaro – NYC, USA

I recently ate at Hwaro, the new restaurant from Sungchul Shim (executive chef of 1-star restaurants Kochi and Mari, as well as the steakhouse Gui). This is a very new restaurant, only opening in the past 2 weeks, so there’s very little information about them online. This will be a long review but I hope this can satisfy some curiosity around this place. 

Space: Hwaro is a restaurant that shares a building with Gui steakhouse. The first floor is Bar92, a trendy happy hour space. This relatively small space also doubles as the waiting area for Gui and Hwaro, which are both located on the second floor. It gets cramped pretty easily, so I wouldn’t recommend showing up too early. Hwaro is currently doing a single 7pm seating and I was taken to my seat at 7:10. 

Hwaro itself is located in its own room apart from Gui. The room has an oval counter surrounding its cooking space (one of the collages has a pic from their Insta in the top right). Officially they can seat up to 22 people, but I think that would be a tight fit. There were 12 people dining on my night and it’s hard for me to envision them doubling this. But overall I liked the space. Bar92 and Gui seemed a bit too trendy for my liking but Hwaro was a bit more elegant.

The experience of eating at Hwaro felt like a bit of a mix between bōm and Nōksu, with the seating and space reminiscent of the former and the “I’m impressed by how much cooking they do in such a tight space” factor of the latter. 

Service: I don’t want to nitpick too much on the service since they’re clearly still working out their coordination being brand new and all (and I expected this going in). But the servers were friendly and professional and there were no glaring issues.

Even though they’re still figuring some things out there were nice gestures of hospitality: Everyone got a small welcome beverage and your seat was designated with a name card. Chef Shim went around checking in with everyone throughout the meal and seemed genuinely touched by any compliments he received. He also offered everyone complimentary sake at the end of the meal. The 11 course meal took 3 hours and the pacing was pretty even. 

Menu: The menu reads a bit like “luxury ingredient bingo”, with foie gras, wagyu, caviar, and black truffles. While I’d love to see more tasting menus break away from this mold, you could do a lot worse than Hwaro does. I did not think these ingredients were used as a crutch and in fact I generally enjoyed the way they were used in their respective dishes. Also, the menu is an active work in progress so some of the ingredients listed were not actually used (e.g. there were no truffles used in the mushroom pie). 

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Food: I’m not the best at describing food but since there don’t seem to be any descriptions online at the moment I’ll give it a go.

Amuse– Bottom piece was simply described as fried burdock, though it’s stuffed with other ingredients. This had a nice crispy outside and a light flavor with herbal and sweet notes and was a solid first bite. 

Second piece was a shrimp tartare tartlet topped with a pineapple gel. This bite tasted solely of pineapple, I think the gel might’ve been stronger than intended, but not a bad bite. 

The final piece was only described as “our version of a French Dip sandwich” and it was a standout. The crisp-on-the-outside-soft-on-the-inside bread held a juicy piece of beef that had that great roast beef flavor and there was a rich caramelized onion flavor incorporated as well. This French Dip was one of the more fun and memorable bites from an amuse bouche spread that I’ve had.   

Wild amberjack– This dish featured pieces of aged amberjack with a cucumber-melon relish, mugwort vinegar, and celtuce foam. The amberjack itself was a strange miss. Even though it had been aged, it had almost no discernible flavor; neither the clean meaty flavor of fresh amberjack nor the complex nutty flavors that usually come from aging. The accompanying ingredients had a great herbal and refreshing flavor, but they were clearly there to support the flavor of a main protein and that flavor was missing. Not an unpleasant dish but it definitely tasted incomplete, not exactly sure what happened here. 

Abalone– This dish had a sort of sandwich (abalone in a grilled shrimp and seaweed bread) with accompanying caviar over a custard made with white soy and abalone liver. You eat this by spreading the caviar custard over the sandwich and the result is delicious. The sandwich has a juicy shrimp flavor and it goes well with the rich creamy custard and salty caviar. A fun dish overall.

Mushroom pie– A baked tart filled with a medley of mushrooms that was topped with a mushroom sauce, shaved mushrooms, and porcini powder resulting in a sort of mushrooms-on-mushrooms-on-mushrooms dish. Not the most photogenic but it’s an umami bomb of deliciousness. While I’d put this as my third or fourth favorite dish of the meal, I heard other diners called it their favorite. I think with some tweaks this has the potential to become an iconic signature dish. In fact, the chefs seem to be actively working on refining this dish with one of them saying the version served is already different from the one they made in their first week. You can see this from how the printed menu lists truffles as an ingredient even though we were told that the version served to us did not include truffles. Personally, I’d use fewer shaved mushrooms on top and arrange them more deliberately to improve the texture and presentation, but this was excellent nonetheless. 

Foie gras– This was my second favorite dish of the night: foie gras rolled in a bokbunja (Korean berry) gelee with a piece of bread, the type of which I’m forgetting. The gelee had a really nice tartness that balanced out the sweetness of the foie gras and the rich creaminess paired very nicely with the nutty bread. Foie gras is generally my least favorite luxury ingredient and one that I’m usually not enthusiastic to see on a menu but this was the sort of dish that made me love it and want more. 

Also served was shaved foie gras on a rice cracker. Quite tasty, but a bit of a third wheel to the other pieces. 

Scallop– This dish had a lot going on: scallop with shaved black truffles, a squid ink tuile, pine nut sauce, sweet potato foam, and smoked trout roe. Each bite was good but had a different taste depending on which ingredients you got in your spoon. The components were all decent but should probably be reduced to make the dish more cohesive.

Golden Eye Snapper– Snapper smoked over a binchotan grill served with squash blossom and baby zucchini in a smoked pine wood sauce. My first bite was just the snapper skin and it had a rather fishy taste that I found unpleasant. The rest of the snapper meat was fine. It’s a real shame that the skin didn’t hold up because that smoky and herbal pine sauce was transcendent, top tier in terms of sauces I've tried. If not for that fishiness this would’ve likely been my favorite dish of the night.

I actually heard the diner next to me express a similar sentiment when he remarked to his dining partner “Fish was too fishy, but if they had just served the sauce in a cup I’d drink that by itself”.

Hwaro– The name of this restaurant refers to a Korean brazier and this titular course featured some grilled duck breast served on a mini-brazier. Accompanying the duck breast was a roll of “duck pastrami” wrapped in seaweed and a side of jus made with maple and bokbunja. This was my favorite course of the night. I’m really hesitant to write this because I don’t want to over-hype this dish but if I’m being honest I enjoyed this duck breast and jus more than Eleven Madison Park’s honey lavender duck that I had just last week. The maple bokbunja had the perfect sweetness and tartness to accompany the tender, aged duck breast and I thought it was perfection (though your milage may vary depending on if you prefer a fruitier maple-berry sauce or a more herbal honey-lavender). The pastrami roll was not as elite but still delicious, with the sauce nicely balancing the fatty and flavorful pastrami. 

Sotbap– This was a fun course featuring binchotan-smoked wagyu over cast iron pot rice. It was recommended to eat the beef then mix the “garden” bowl in with the rice as a sort of bibimbap. The beef was nicely marbled and had a great smoky flavor. The garden bowl featured some vegetables and “dirt” made from toasted burdock and mushrooms. Mixing with the rice was tasty and the “dirt” added a delicious crunch to the mixture. The side slice of a hand roll was filled with a smoked fish and pickled vegetables. I really liked the acidity of the vegetables and I actually think this could’ve worked well as a palate cleanser with just pickled vegetables inside. 

Citrus Posset– The pre dessert had a lemon sorbet over what was described as a “tangerine panna cotta”. The custard-like base was very good and had a pleasant fruitiness that went well with the tart sorbet.

The Peach– There’s a definite article in the name so you know it’s gotta be good lol. Also included a pic of the cross-section. There’s a thin shell surrounding a light and fluffy almond cake interior with a wakamomo (unripe Japanese peach) filling that provided a really nice tartness. As is typical of Asian desserts this was pretty light on the sweetness so more Westernized palates may not find this dream-worthy but I thought this was a very nice dessert.

Black sesame– As a bonus dessert, we were served a skewer of black sesame ice cream. Pretty straightforward flavor but I’m a big fan of black sesame so this was my favorite dessert. 

Mignardise– The final bites were some Korean petite fours with a sesame candy, a Korean pear gummy, and a yakgwa cookie. Nice if you like Korean sweets. 

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Price: Honestly this is my biggest issue with Hwaro. At $295, I believe this is the third most expensive Korean tasting menu in NYC. Only Jungsik ($325) and Atomix’s Chef’s Counter ($385, gratuity included) are more expensive. It’s even above places like bōm ($275) and the Atomix bar tasting menu ($285). To charge such a high price right out of the gate is pretty bold especially since, like any new restaurant, they need some time to get comfortable with their service and refine their menu.  

Overall I enjoyed my meal at Hwaro. This was my first time eating at a high end place while it’s brand new and it was fun to be an early diner so I can see how they refine themselves in the coming months. There’s a talented team behind this place and I think there’s a lot of potential for them to stand out in a city crowded with Korean fine dining options. However, my enthusiasm for this place is definitely hampered by the high starting price. I think they’ll benefit from some time to smooth things out before they earn their price point but it’s definitely a place to watch.