Conrad Seoul 37 Grill & Bar: Great Night View & Food
I had a slightly belated birthday party with my family. While looking for a place to go, I checked out restaurants in Yeouido (a major business district in Seoul) since it was a convenient meeting spot for everyone. I've never worked in Yeouido and have spent most of my career around Gangnam, so I don't know this area at all. But this place looked pretty good, so we decided on the Conrad Hotel. I didn't really know the name, definitely didn't know it was part of the Hilton group, and didn't even know there was a hotel like this in Yeouido. It's '37 Grill & Bar' on the 37th floor of the Conrad.
Since I made a phone reservation in advance, we were able to get a window seat with a night view. When I asked for a window seat, they told me there were two dinner seatings. The second seating starts at 8:30 PM, and since everyone had their own schedules and might be running late, plus the night view would probably be better, we went with the second seating. But after sitting down, I thought it would also be nice to come for the first seating and watch the sunset over Seoul.
Looking at the menu, there was a special discount promotion running on Tuesdays and Sundays. Tuesday and Sunday... I thought the choice of days was pretty unique. Getting a steak for 37,000 KRW was tempting, but since it was a special day, we ordered a course meal. The course was unusually named the "Tasting Menu." It sounded like they would just give us tiny bites to taste, but maybe because there were so many dishes, it was actually quite hard to finish everything.
The pre-meal bread was just pre-meal bread, so I'll skip that. As we chatted and enjoyed the night view, the dishes came out one by one. At Signiel (a luxury hotel in Seoul), one person was assigned to us and explained everything, but here, different people took turns (or just randomly) serving and explaining the food. Even though multiple people served us, just like at other hotel restaurants, everyone was very friendly and handled explanations and questions well, which made the food taste even better. I think the advantage of a hotel is being served by staff with a certain level of service quality and knowledge. Of course, the price matches that... Ah, it's too expensive.
I'm not sure how often the Tasting Menu changes, but looking at other blogs, it seems different from what I had. I thought it was a fixed menu, so I didn't take a picture of it. I'll just try to roughly list what I ate from memory.
The course I had at Signiel STAY really felt like eating in Europe—a foreigner guided us, and the food was as salty as what I had in Spain. It was delicious, but the saltiness was the main flavor. In contrast, 37 Grill & Bar felt exactly like a course meal prepared by a Korean. The flavors were well-balanced and didn't feel too salty. In a way, it might be less exciting, but I think it's a safer restaurant choice when coming with a group.
The last time I went to STAY, the fog was so thick that I could barely see the night view, but today's night view of Seoul was so clear and bright that I couldn't stop staring at it. If I come again, I'd love to visit during the first seating to see Seoul at sunset.
The hotel shares a parking lot with IFC Mall. However, when you go in to park at this IFC Mall, you have to go all the way down to the 5th basement level (B5). The parking lot is spacious, so parking itself isn't an issue, but driving down is incredibly dizzying. If your premium credit card offers free valet parking, I highly recommend using it. Ah, you'd probably do that even if I didn't say it.