Banker-turned-restaurateur Min Park is teaming up with chef Brian Shin, an alum of Corey Lee\u2019s Benu and In Situ, on a new project called Ajae. Park told the Chronicle that it will be an upscale Korean restaurant serving Shin\u2019s take on Korean comfort dishes like gukbap, a homey rice soup.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose dishes are in almost every Korean restaurant, but with Brian\u2019s special skill set they get taken to the next level,\u201d Park said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to blow people away.\u201d<\/p>\n
The target opening timeframe for\u00a0Ajae, which will be located on Oakland\u2019s Piedmont Avenue, is late 2026, Park said, but he declined to share the address, or its past tenant. Once open, he hopes that the restaurant can bring some optimism to the local dining scene, which has seen a spate of closures<\/a> amid a challenging environment<\/a>. \u201cA good restaurant can transform the entire block and how it feels,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Shin has previously worked at fine dining landmarks such as Chicago\u2019s\u00a0Alinea and Corton in New York before starting with Corey Lee\u2019s group. In 2017, he pivoted to a more casual setting, at cocktail bar the Snug<\/a> in San Francisco\u2019s Pacific Heights. Shin will follow in the footsteps of some of his former Benu peers, including James Yeun Leong Parry of the Happy Crane<\/a> and Alan Hsu of Sun Moon Studio<\/a>, who have gone on to open their own restaurants.\u00a0<\/p>\n The partnership for\u00a0Ajae will echo Park\u2019s ventures at Itria and Yeobo, Darling: He runs the financials and other business aspects, while the chefs focus on the kitchen and dining room. Park is also the chief financial officer of Bay Area hospitality company Omakase Restaurant Group, which operates Michelin-starred Niku Steakhouse and casual xiao long bao chain Dumpling Time.\u00a0<\/p>\n Park said that there\u2019s a personal element to his latest restaurants. The concept for Yeobo, Darling spoke to him, he said, since he is Korean and his wife Taiwanese, as are its chefs, husband-and-wife duo Michael and Meichih Kim. And since Park\u2019s mother passed away in November, he and his father have been dining out at Korean restaurants more frequently, seeking out dishes in the comforting style of her cooking\u00a0\u2014 a feeling he hopes that Shin can offer diners.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMaking restaurants that have meaning to you,\u201d Park said, \u201ccreates the best product.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Banker-turned-restaurateur Min Park is teaming up with chef Brian Shin, an alum of Corey Lee\u2019s Benu and In…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[7,332,413,143,145,144,412],"class_list":["post-346095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-california","tag-east-bay","tag-food","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-restaurants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}