Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Pierre Gagnaire in Korea

Article from the Korea Times

Pierre Gagnaire, who holds three Michelin stars for his flagship establishment in Paris, has opened his new restaurant, PIERRE GAGNAIRE a Seoul, at Lotte Hotel Seoul.

The French chef does not easily lend his name as he has a strong commitment to maintain a high level of quality at all the restaurants under his name. He owns restaurants across the globe, but only four bear his name, these are in Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Dubai and now Seoul.

Although Gagnaire follows genuine French cuisine regarding food ingredients and basic cooking methods, his cooking style is known to be modern, innovative, and diverse.

To open the restaurant here, he long prepared dishes featuring Korean ingredients such as abalone, sesame and rice.

With the opening of the restaurant, Lotte Hotel Seoul's long dream seems to have come true.

The hotel had long sought to open one of Gagnaire's restaurants and it took more than two years to realize the project. The preparation involved eight months of large-scale renovation, investment of about 7 billion won in Pierre Gagnaire's brand import, design, recruiting staff from Paris and menu consulting.

For his part, Gagnaire promised to have his flagship French cuisine available at the hotel. He has also personally selected 270 different wines to match his dishes, of which some 130 wines have never been introduced in Korea before.

Gagnaire has even made up a comprehensive service manual regarding reception, service technique, food and wine pairing; and a multi-concept bar in his name opening for the first time in the world.

The launch seems to be pretty successful or at least it proved the high expectation on him and the restaurant, given that it has already received more than 300 reservations before the opening on Oct. 1.

At PIERRE GAGNAIRE a Seoul, he offers an a la carte menu of three to four dishes, course menu of more than 15 plates, and dessert menu.

Prices of a la carte menus range from 100,000 won to 150,000 won. Lunch course menus are priced at 120,000 won and 200,000 won with dinner course menus at 220,000 won and 300,000 won.

The restaurant opens from noon to 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. to midnight on weekdays and from 6 p.m. to midnight on Saturdays.

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