Fifteen years ago, Jungsik Yim was among those who kick-started the global Korean fine-dining movement when he opened his eponymous, Michelin-starred restaurants in Seoul in 2009 and in New York two years later. Now, on Wednesday, August 21, he’s opening his next restaurant, Sea, at 151 W. 30th Street, near Seventh Avenue: a bespoke, casual Southeast Asian restaurant that combines his fine-dining skills, Korean and French techniques, and food from Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore.

Yim raised the first Korean flag on Manhattan’s fine dining scene at a time when French and Japanese cuisine still dominated. His restaurant Jungsik was also an incubator for modern Korean chefs in New York and launched the careers of former employees such as Junghyun Park (Atoboy, Atomix), Hoyoung Kim (Jua, Moono) and Eunji Lee (Lysée).

It may surprise people that Yim would open a casual restaurant, let alone one that focuses on Southeast Asian cuisine. For Yim, it’s the culmination of long-standing aspirations: Southeast Asian food and casual dining. In 2011, the Singapore government invited him to speak at the World Gourmet Summit, after which he visited local markets and restaurants. He tried bak kut teh (pork bone soup) for the first time and loved it. “It’s like gomtang, but different,” he said. At a culinary event in Thailand, he ate his first somtum. “Wow, this is like kimchi,” he thought. Southeast Asian food offers a mix of the familiar and the new, with balanced sour, sweet, salty and spicy flavors.

After that visit, he began incorporating Southeast Asian ingredients into Jungsik. In Seoul, he offered scallops soaked in lemongrass. His dry-aged Arctic char with kimchi curry and coconut foam became a signature menu item in New York.

Since then, in the time he spends in Seoul each year, he has noticed that more and more Koreans are embracing international cuisines. This has coincided with a rise in immigration: Korea was (and still is) a largely mono-ethnic country with a short history of immigration that began in the mid-1990s from China, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Mongolia. At the end of 2015, Korea had nearly 1.5 million registered foreigners, just under three percent of its 51.5 million population, but also a 235 percent increase since the end of 2003.

Over the past decade, he has seen a less developed supply chain for Southeast Asian ingredients evolve. “At first, I could only find frozen (makrut) limes, cilantro and lemongrass in Korea,” he says. Still, he started pho pop-ups at various restaurants in Seoul, eventually opening a casual North Korean naengmyeon spot called Pyunghwaok in 2018; in 2020, I Pho U, where he sold “the most expensive pho in Seoul.” He closed both, turning the latter into Gomtang Lab earlier this year.

When Yim wasn’t in Korea, he lived in New York about a quarter of the year, importing fresh Southeast Asian ingredients and visiting his favorite restaurant, Thai Son. He shopped at the Hong Kong Supermarket in Chinatown for family meals that turned into late-night pho parties at Jungsik. To this day, staff meals are served in melamine pho bowls.

Ultimately, he decided to open a Southeast Asian restaurant in New York. “This is a better playground to implement this Sea concept,” he said. It would give you the freedom to eat with your hands. “That’s how you eat really good food,” he said.

In 2019, he signed the lease for the Midtown Manhattan space and has been paying rent ever since. (“Ugh, that’s a sad story,” he said, recalling the pandemic.) During this time, many Southeast Asian restaurants sprung up: Fish Cheeks (Yim’s new favorite restaurant), Bangkok Supper Club, Sappe, Bang Bang Bangkok, Soothr, Ma Dé. In 2023, he hired Jun Hee Park, the assistant chef at Jungsik, to head the kitchen at Sea.

In a casual 70-seat space with cushioned banquettes and simple wooden tables, Yim and Park apply fine-dining techniques to some of his favorite Southeast Asian dishes. For his shrimp rolls, he imports lacy spring roll wrappers from Ho Chi Minh City to deliver delightfully crispy bites. For his lemongrass-scented St. Louis ribs, he cuts a French-style handle. He takes his cues from Korean bibim guksu (mixed noodles), but uses kalguksu noodles (usually in soup) as the base for his dry tom yum noodles.

Dan Ahn/Sea

His pork noodle soup – the result of all those pho parties and pop-ups – combines Vietnamese pho, Malaysian bak kuh teh and Korean gomtang. The broth simmers for at least six hours in a 40-gallon pot containing a pig’s head, ribs, feet, shoulder bones and a spice blend of cinnamon, clove and star anise. Then it’s combined with perfectly braised pork belly and rice noodles and served with cilantro, bean sprouts, lime and Thai basil.

He couldn’t give up fine dining techniques entirely. Next year he’s opening the 15-seat Sea Lab, where guest chefs can experiment with Southeast Asian ingredients. “Fine dining is in his blood,” said Jean Lee, Sea’s general manager.

sea is open Tuesday through Saturday from 5pm to 11pm. Reservations for the main dining room are available on Resy. Some seating in the front dining room and the entire bar are available without reservations.

Caroline Shin is a Queens-raised food journalist and founder of Cooking with Granny YouTube and workshop series with immigrant grandmothers. Follow her on Instagram @CookingWGranny.

Dan Ahn/Sea