{"id":526789,"date":"2026-07-05T19:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T19:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/526789\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T19:38:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T19:38:11","slug":"inside-jungsik-yims-new-restaurant-muje-in-nyc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/526789\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Jungsik Yim’s New Restaurant Muje in NYC"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tChef Jungsik Yim, whose TriBeCa restaurant Jungsik remains the only three-Michelin starred Korean restaurant in America, is broadening his purview. Yim has debuted Muje, a new restaurant that follows Jungsik\u2019s playbook with a culinary palette that ventures beyond the \u201cNew Korean\u201d fine-dining cuisine he helped establish in New York<\/a> over a decade ago.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u200a\u201dJungsik is more expensive; it\u2019s hard to get a table there. So I wanted to create a restaurant that\u2019s more approachable,\u201d says Yim. \u201cSo people can enjoy something as high quality as Jungsik, but with a more affordable cost.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Inside<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tInside the Muje dining room.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlexander Stein<\/p>\n

\n\tMuje is located at 151 W 30th Street, just south of Herald Square and located between Chelsea and Koreatown. The restaurant takes the place of Sea, a casual Southeast Asian a la carte restaurant that Yim opened in 2024 and which closed its doors earlier this spring to make way for the new concept.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe realized, \u2018Look, why don\u2019t we lean into what we\u2019re actually good at?’\u201d says Yim. \u201cI\u2019m Korean, but our head chef here is Chinese, and we have a lot of other Asian chefs on the crew. So we figured, \u2018Let\u2019s broaden our scope and go with Asian cuisine.’\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tMuje in Korean means \u201cuntitled\u201d or \u201cundefined,\u201d a nod to the restaurant\u2019s central philosophy of drawing inspiration from different Asian cuisines across the continent. The menu is defined as Asian food<\/a> without boundaries, and brings Yim back to the earliest days of Jungsik. The pioneering chef, who graduated from the Culinary Institute of America and went on to cook for renowned restaurants across New York<\/a>, Spain and France, opened the first location in Seoul in 2009, before expanding to New York in 2011.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAround that time, I fell in love with Asian cuisines outside of Korea. So I used to make those dishes a lot as staff meals,\u201d says Yim, adding that experience inspired him to open Sea over a decade later.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Jungsik focuses on Korean cuisine with contemporary influences, Muje\u2019s approach will be rooted in the more expansive perimeter of Asian cuisine. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEven in Korea, we have Korean Chinese food<\/a>, just like how you have American Chinese food here. We have Korean Japanese food,\u201d says Yim. \u201cFusion Asian, traditional Japanese or traditional Chinese \u2014 all of those broader ranges is something that we\u2019re gonna bring into Muje. In that sense, it is open-ended.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLike Jungsik, Muje\u2019s menu is structured as a tasting one, at a more approachable price point (starting at $150) with fewer courses (eight) than its sister restaurant downtown.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tKongguksu, a classic Korean soybean noodle dish, with perilla oil.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlexander Stein<\/p>\n

\n\tCourses include Kong-guksu, a popular cold soybean noodle soup dish, served warm with pollock roe and cured egg yolk \u2014 an example of a Korean dish that Yim has tweaked to match his own taste palette; short rib served in four wraps that each represents a different Asian culinary tradition, and salmon grilled over binchotan charcoal with razor clams and red curry. Dessert courses include pineapple sorbet with lime granita and an interpretation of Merlion, a coconut Singaporean dish. The kitchen will be led by executive chef Daeik Kim, who comes over from Jungsik.<\/p>\n

\n\tInspiration for the food menu stays within Asia, but the beverage program takes a global approach, with wines from prominent European regions. Cocktails will bring the focus back to Asian ingredients and flavors, with options like Midnight in Samui, a pea-infused rum cocktail.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Midnight<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tMidnight in Samui cocktail.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlexander Stein<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Muje dining room features 48 seats, with an additional six at the bar and 12 lounge seats, which will serve the tasting menu and \u00e0\u00a0la carte options. The room design, led by Two Point Zero, is anchored in an earthy, neutral color palette with red oak and walnut millwork and raffia paper pendant lighting to create a warm, calm atmosphere.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u200a\u201dWhen I\u2019m thinking about the space and the design of the interior, I always think it\u2019s best to go minimal and simple,\u201d says Yim of the space\u2019s organic aesthetic. \u201cThat\u2019s how you actually focus on and enjoy the food more.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAlthough Muje is an opportunity for culinary exploration in the kitchen, guest enjoyment is where Yim casts his attention.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhether it\u2019s Jungsik or Muje, when it comes to the philosophy of food, it\u2019s just about making it delicious,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chef Jungsik Yim, whose TriBeCa restaurant Jungsik remains the only three-Michelin starred Korean restaurant in America, is broadening…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":526790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,453,85,46,1886],"class_list":["post-526789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-food","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-new-york"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}