There are easier ways to eat the cooking of a Michelin-starred chef than committing to a tasting menu. Woongchul Park has found one involving fried chicken and considerably less cutlery.
The chef-owner of Sollip, the Michelin-starred restaurant near London Bridge, has opened Papa Dak at Flat Iron Square, a new Korean fried chicken operation drawing on Park’s Korean heritage and his love of fried chicken.
The chicken itself is double-fried and scattered with crispy bits of rice for extra crunch before being coated in one of two sauces. Korean Red (£12) takes its cues from yangnyeom chicken, all sticky sweetness, spice and gloss. Guinness Black (£13), meanwhile, comes lacquered in a dark Guinness sauce, Park’s nod to London’s apparently inexhaustible appetite for the stout. No pint glass required.
The rest of the menu is similarly concise. So-tok so-tok (£5) alternates smoked sausage with chewy tteok rice cakes on skewers, while a Korean take on coleslaw (£4) brings together carrot, aekjeot fish sauce, chilli and sesame. Pickled kohlrabi with garlic and ginger costs £2.50.
Those unwilling to choose between the two chickens can order the £36 Korean Feast, which serves four with both versions, sausage and rice-cake skewers and the two sides. At £9 a head before drinks, it is unlikely to require much discussion with the bank.
Park is better known for rather more elaborate cooking. He and his wife and business partner Bomee Ki opened Sollip in 2020, bringing classical French technique together with flavours and ingredients from their Korean heritage. The restaurant was awarded a Michelin star in 2022.
Papa Dak takes that attention to detail somewhere altogether less formal. It is part of a familiar and welcome direction of travel in London: accomplished chefs applying serious technique to the food people might actually fancy eating on a Tuesday night. Michelin pedigree no longer necessarily arrives with white tablecloths, hushed dining rooms or a bill requiring a moment alone afterwards.
The new venture is a family affair too. Its name combines “Papa” with “dak”, the Korean word for chicken, while the crowned chicken logo was designed by Park and Ki’s children.
“The menu at Papa Dak is all about big flavour in every bite – saucy, delicious and exactly what you want when those indulgent cravings hit,” Park said.
Flat Iron Square itself is firmly at the casual end of proceedings: a food, drink and sports venue with screens throughout the site. Papa Dak therefore puts Park’s cooking in front of a rather different crowd from the one sitting down for dinner at Sollip nearby.
The Michelin star stays at Sollip. Happily, some of the know-how appears to have made the short journey down the road.
Papa Dak is now open at Flat Iron Square, 45 Southwark Street, London SE1 9HP.