Dongnae, Bristol: ‘So good I thought-about giving up cleansing my tooth’

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It started within the mid sixties with James Brown. It was his private groove, heavy on the downbeat — “on the one” as he known as it — that gave delivery to funk. It achieved perfection within the oeuvre of Johnny “Guitar” Watson, Sly and the Household Stone and Parliament/Funkadelic. “Peak Funk”, if you’ll. Funk is to be taken critically. Which is why I intend to put in writing the next evaluate of a Korean restaurant in Bristol with an adventurous pure wine record, with out utilizing the phrase once more.

Dongnae is the venture of Kyu Jeong Jeon and Duncan Robertson, who met in Paris working below Joël Robuchon. Their first restaurant was in Bristol’s Stoke’s Croft, a tiny ramshackle joint which raised such curiosity among the many metropolis’s meals lovers that I employed a camper van throughout the pandemic so I may park outdoors and eat their takeaway. Their new place is in an outdated butcher’s store in trendy Cotham. The inside is superbly minimal. An austere counter in plywood and formica, clear and brilliant lit, barely restraining an open kitchen.

I started with a spectacular, precision hand-roll of Devon crab topped with Icelandic urchin roe. Not wrapped within the acquainted nori seaweed, however a particular one which the cooks deliver again on their common visits to Korea. A mat of virulent inexperienced threads, like a glamorous potscrubber, however with an assertive, nearly tea-like style that enhances the creamy crab.

Choices from the charcoal grill come ssam-style with leaves to wrap, ssamjang bean paste and varied small bowls of condiments. It’s, thank God, Castelfranco season once more so we will lastly have leaves that style of greater than hydroponic nutrient drip. I ordered the “samgyeopsal” — actually “three-layer meat” — primarily as a result of it’s probably the most poetic description of pork stomach I may think about. Any delicacies with a phrase like that wants my consideration. And simply if you thought it couldn’t get any higher, this piece got here with its personal pickle of fermented sardines.

I had so as to add the dayboat mackerel, butterflied out, grilled and soy-glazed. C’mon. You understand I’m a sucker for self-assembly meals. What might be higher than slapping this kind of stuff into leafy parcels and posting it down the little pink lane?

Clam and mussel bibimbap is available in a “dolsot”, a stone bowl, on a thick slice of tree trunk, so despite the fact that it’s come straight out of the grill coals, it received’t burn its means by way of the counter like a reactor core gone essential. All that warmth scorches the rice to the underside of the pot equally to Hong Kong “claypot” rice or Persian tahdig, so that you’re enjoined by the employees to stir it up. To interrupt up mussel fats and distribute it evenly, to disperse the clams and to chisel a few of that chewy goodness off the underside. This made me really feel immensely empowered because it was, lastly, one thing I may do competently with my chopsticks. Korean desk etiquette favours metallic chopsticks which, to my disgrace, I deal with about in addition to a baboon crocheting a doily. Happily, every place setting additionally consists of a big spoon.

“5-year doenjang stew, native tofu, courgette” is, I can’t lie, a brown stew, with seaweed, slices of mushroom, courgettes (or related cucurbit), a couple of tiny items of meat and lots of massive cubes of tofu, lurking malevolent ’neath the floor like a college of hippie sharks. This isn’t an Insta-genic bowl. And therein lies its fiendish brilliance. The harmless brown liquid during which all floats is comprised of doenjang — that’s like a miso — that the proprietors have been proudly rearing for 5 years.

And Christ, they’ve carried out a superb job. It’s deep, advanced, refined, wealthy. Give it some non-public tuition and three months constructing a college in Ghana and it’s bought each probability of entering into Oxford. It’s actually fairly disorientating. I imply, these are hint portions of meat, however the bewildering depth is wrought from fermented beans, fungus and pure love. I can’t inform if it’s beef or pork in there, however I’m guessing no matter it’s has been invited alongside solely to donate collagen. The seaweed helps to thicken issues too. The mushrooms add a comforting wintry bass be aware to the final symphony of umami, and the tofu . . .

I believe that is the primary time I’ve ever tasted tofu. Clearly, I’ve eaten kilos of it by way of a protracted profession, however the one prevailing high quality I may relate to you’ll be moist chalk. These items defined all the things. Refined fungoid flavours. Creaminess. Like a custard made with solely the white elements of mushrooms grown in Parisian catacombs on the bones of saints.

It sounds unusual, however I felt immediately comfy with the stew. It labored the identical means as a bouillabaisse, a navarin d’agneau or a superb Welsh cawl. Every part in there builds the juice earlier than lastly surrendering to it. I swear I’d fortunately dwell an eternity of back-to-back Cambridge Februaries if I may have this for lunch day by day. We took small aspect dishes of mustard leaf, nabak, and “spicy water” kimchis, as if to cleanse the palate, however I wasn’t kidding myself. The stew was so good I critically thought-about giving up cleansing my tooth.

Appreciation of different cuisines was traditionally led by now derided “knowledgeable voices”, akin to Marcella Hazan, Richard Olney, David Thompson or Claudia Roden. Sensible writers in our personal language, with sufficient like to be taught and champion one other tradition. Within the UK, writers like Su Scott and Jordan Bourke have begun evangelising Korean meals, however, for me a minimum of, it looks like every time I stroll right into a restaurant, I’m studying anew.

Which is why I really like Dongnae; totally different, gently inspiring, flat-out scrumptious, welcoming me to be taught.