The disappearing table: How this chef is preserving North Korean cuisine in Seoul

In Seoul’s fast-paced dining scene, where trends turn over quickly and fine dining grows increasingly globalised, chef Choi Ji-Hyung is charting a quieter, more personal course. At his cosy restaurant Leebukbang (which means “North Korean Room”), Choi is working to preserve and reinterpret the culinary traditions of North Korea.

Unlike the headline-grabbing restaurants around the city, Leebukbang doesn’t seek to impress with modernist techniques or imported ingredients. Instead, its focus is on something much more fragile: Memories. Specifically, the memories of Choi’s grandmother, who fled the North during the Korean War, bringing with her recipes and foodways from Hamgyeong Province. Choi is part of a group of third-generation descendants of North Korean refugees. His restaurant is one of the very few in the country that serves a full course of North Korean cuisine — not the symbolic dishes seen in state banquets or news documentaries, but everyday food once eaten by ordinary families. “I’ve never been to North Korea. I can’t go,” Choi explained. “So I rely on what was passed down to me — through taste, through stories, through remembering.”

In the span of a century, Korea experienced colonisation, war, division, and displacement on a massive scale. The Korean War alone forced millions to flee, including more than a million who crossed from North to South. Over time, many of these families blended into the fabric of South Korean society, but assimilation often comes with quiet erasure. Conversations about war tend to focus on borders, ideologies, or casualties. But war also erases food. Recipes vanish. Ingredients go out of reach. People stop cooking what they no longer see — or no longer remember.

Because North Korea remains inaccessible to most South Koreans, and information is tightly controlled within the North itself, the food of that region exists here only in fragments: In memory, in inherited recipes, or refugee enclaves like those in Incheon or Busan, which are slowly vanishing. Today, there is no official record of North Korean culinary history, and few chefs are trained in its traditions. For Choi, that makes preservation a pressing concern. “Instead of leaving those memories in the past, I want to use them as a foundation for the future.”

BEYOND NAENGMYEON

One of the few North Korean dishes familiar to most South Koreans is Pyeongyang naengmyeon, the iconic cold noodles made with buckwheat and a mild broth. But instead of leaning into that familiarity, Choi serves Sagot naengmyeon in the summer — a little-known variety from Hwanghae Province. The dish incorporates coastal ingredients and reflects the region’s geography, shaped by its proximity to the West Sea and long-standing obscurity compared to other provinces. “Most South Koreans don’t know Sagot naengmyeon,” said Choi. “But it’s part of our food culture. I want to bring that into the light.”

Another example is garitguk, a type of rib soup from Hamgyeong Province. Unlike the more familiar galbitang served in Seoul, garitguk includes beef blood, tofu, mung bean pancakes, and rice. “This was considered a rare delicacy in Hamgyeong, where beef was scarce,” Choi explained . “Including it on my menu is my way of showing deep hospitality— like welcoming a VIP.”

His most personal course is sundae, a dish often seen as street fare in the South. But for Choi, it holds a deeper cultural and emotional weight. “Sundae is made with what is considered humble ingredients — internal organs, hind legs, congealed blood, and other inexpensive cuts of pork, stuffed with vegetables and glutinous rice,” he explains. At Leebukbang, the sundae course unfolds in several versions. There’s Blood Sundae (blood and vegetable), White Sundae (with glutinous rice and egg), Abai Sundae (linked to North Korean refugees in the South), and Goose Sundae, a preparation uncommon in the South but tied to North Korean livestock traditions. “I see the sundae course as a reflection of people like me — underdogs — who transform themselves into something beautiful,” Choi said. “Though the fillings vary, together they represent the everyday lives of ordinary people.”

There are other dishes that he can’t recreate or reintroduce — at least, not anymore. Saengtae-tang, a clear pollock soup once common in North Korea, is one example. “Fresh pollock used to be abundant in the East Sea. But it’s no longer easily available these days,” Choi said. Alongside dishes lost to time or climate, there are others that remain overlooked due to cultural perception. “If I could introduce just one dish to the South Korean public, it would be something made with goose or wild goose meat,” Choi continued. “In the North, these were used for meatballs, bone broths, all kinds of things. But in the South, people tend to reject them. They’re not popular.” He hopes diners will eventually approach such ingredients with more openness. “I want people to let go of those preconceptions and taste them for what they are.”

The lack of access to North Korea means Choi is effectively cooking without a map. There are no tasting trips to Pyongyang or Hamhung. There are no cookbooks or culinary academies. Instead, he draws from memory, oral tradition, and intuition. “When I hit a wall, I think back to what my grandmother made,” he said. “I recreate the taste as best I can, and when something is missing, I figure it out on my own. Sometimes the solution comes from my own experiences, including my youth and time abroad, to shape how these dishes are reborn.” He uses preservation techniques like fermentation and pickling to get through seasons when ingredients aren’t available. He also relies on local sourcing, choosing not to fly in substitutes from abroad. “I don’t force dishes if the ingredients aren’t here,” he said.

Choi describes his approach as simple but thoughtful: “Simplicity is my secret. Using good ingredients with a simple, sincere approach and then letting time do the rest. No recipe is better than time and quality ingredients.” While he’s aware that his interpretations may not be exact replicas of the original dishes, he takes pride in the changes. “They may differ from how they’re made in the North, but that’s the beauty of cooking — diversity enriches the field. My values help me maintain balance and harmony.”

A SPACE FOR STORYTELLING

While Choi doesn’t market Leebukbang as a nostalgia project, memory is central to its purpose. The restaurant is small, quiet, and designed to feel more like a table at home than a performance space. “For me, I wanted to honour my grandmother by continuing to share this remarkable cuisine and to give my family something to gather around, even in her absence,” he explained. He also sees Leebukbang as a space for cultural education, not through lectures, but through food. “Leebukbang is a place for memory, nostalgia, and empathy, with the flavour and aroma of food acting as catalysts. I also hope it serves as a space for education and a cultural experience of Northern cuisine.

Choi is careful not to overstate the political dimension of his work. “I didn’t start Leebukbang to make a statement,” he said. “But I hope it becomes a part of history. Not through force, but naturally with time.” As conversations around culinary heritage and identity grow louder in South Korea, his work sits naturally within a broader shift — one that sees food not just as sustenance, but as a record of North Koreans. “The division happened less than 100 years ago and yet, the emotional gap between North and South feels much longer. Still, we speak the same language. Only when the North and South are reunited can Korea be truly whole. I hope I’m not the only one looking forward to that day.”