Mingles

Chef Mingoo Kang trained under Martín Berasategui in San Sebastián and was the youngest-ever head chef at Nobu Bahamas before returning home to open Mingles in 2014 — the name means mixing disparate things into a harmonious whole, which is exactly the project. His cooking turns on jang, the trio of Korean fermented sauces (doenjang, ganjang, gochujang) that he makes in-house over months and years, married to French and Japanese technique and a deep seam of Korean tradition. The signatures tell the story: a long-simmered "Mingling Pot" rich with umami, and a "Jang Trio" dessert that reinvents those three ferments as something sweet. It earned its first star in 2017, climbed to two, and in February 2025 became Seoul's first three-star restaurant, also landing at No. 5 on Asia's 50 Best. A bright, deeply Korean argument for where the country's cooking can go.