when you want, where you want.
The Best Rockefeller Center Restaurant Is Actually Two
Photo: Hugo Yu
When the annals of developer-led neighborhood “revitalization” are written — and what annals they’ll be — the Rockefeller Center chapter will be a meaty one. New York history and New York amnesia meet there (and who were more megadevelopers than the Standard Oil, Chase Manhattan Rockefellers?). The great Deco skyscrapers still stand, and it’s still worth braving midtown to see Intelligence Awakening Mankind, the mosaic mural that adorns 1250 Avenue of the Americas, tucked behind Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show marquee. But the real neon that made the Rainbow Room and NBC Studios’ signage glow is dimming, soon to be replaced by LED. This is the way of the world. Over on Fifth Avenue, Atlas shrugs.
Now Tishman Speyer is in charge of the Plaza, and over the past few years, it’s done the large-scale, often credible job of gussying the place up and making it more inviting for the tourists (primarily) and New Yorkers (secondarily) who come by to see the Christmas tree or do a lap around the rink. All that skating works up an appetite, and Tishman Speyer has stocked the complex with restaurants from New York’s current crop of buzzy restaurateurs, a kind of Duty Free restaurant row. The ladies of King bring you Jupiter, the team from Atomix has Naro, Ignacio Mattos’s Matter House offers Lodi — the list goes on.
These places are all as good as they need to be, which is to say, good enough. But among Rock Center revitalizations, the one that’s excited me more than any of the others is one just outside the borderlands of Speyer City. It’s a more personal project. Golden HOF and NY Kimchi — two restaurants, one address — built on the bones of a family restaurant, a second generation revitalizing the first. There’s no standing in the way of change, but as gentrification goes, this is an easier kind to root for.
The two spots, pubbier Golden HOF and steakier NY Kimchi, come from Sam Yoo, whose Golden Diner in Chinatown is regularly mobbed by TikTokers seeking its viral pancakes. Yoo grew up in his father’s restaurants in Queens, then honed his own skills at Momofuku Ko and Torrisi, and when he opened the Diner in 2019, it was as a happy marriage of both: the pleasure of comfort food with a little of the polish of fine dining. (It was also, as a nod to his Korean American heritage, a kind of K-pop take on the diner, which hosted Korean-wing nights.) When his parents began to age out of the physical rigors of running their own restaurant, New York Kimchi, Yoo took it over, keeping — for the downstairs — the original (though now shortened) name.
It’s nightmare enough to open one restaurant. Yoo is pulling off two. Upstairs at HOF, the mood is lively and appropriately soused: the drinks Koreafied — kimchee brine in the martini, persimmon and jujubes in the bourbon punch — and the food designed to sop. The raw-bar options overlap with the ones downstairs; it’s worth starting with spicy-creamy lobster “kkanpunggi,” like a lobster roll served in its shell, but I wouldn’t brave two ssuk negronis with only that as ballast. For that, you need wings, fried, fried again, glazed in one of four different sauces, and surely against medical advice. “This is candy,” my husband said over and over, in both wonder and horror, as he made his way through our order of General Sam’s (“like General Tso’s”), which were good, and one of funky-earthy cumin and green Szechuan pepper, which were better. (I only wish you could mix and match in one order.) There’s more: Even casual Korean fans know the spicy, cheese-gooey buldak at this point — Maangchi’s YouTube recipe has 9 million views — but Yoo manages to make it even less healthful and more undeniable, swapping a base of chicken for chicken-and-pork dumplings.
If this is one version of K-Town Korean — all it’s missing, really, are the flashing lights and the karaoke machine — the other is served downstairs at NY Kimchi, which bills itself as a “Korean raw bar and steakhouse,” but is probably closer to a K-BBQ spot with some steak. (Call me a purist, but two cuts of steak does not a steakhouse make.) It expands on HOF’s raw-bar menu — try the kampachi crudo, dressed with pine nuts and a gingery vinaigrette — but the real action is among the mains, whether you opt for table-side grilling (handled for you by your server) or kitchen-made steak. Either way, a variety of banchan will arrive: mauve batons of braised eggplant, a golden heap of potato salad, multiple kimchees made by Yoo’s family and sent over the bridge from Queens.
The Korean steakhouse is not a new concept at this point — granddaddy Cote set the template in New York, and nearby Gui is a recent arrival. NY Kimchi doesn’t out-luxe them, but it doesn’t need to. Its dry-aged T-bone (the most expensive cut on the menu, at $160 for 24 oz.) was properly charred on the outside and lurid within, and there’s plenty of galbi for the grill if you like the sizzle of a thinner cut. (All of the grilled meats are available marinated or not, but — why not?)
Not every dish succeeds. Fried rice came out gummy. A ssamjang Caesar salad was a few sad spears of baby gem lettuce. Given a choice between upstairs and down, I’d stay upstairs eight times out of ten. “They did what they could,” said one of my guests about Kimchi’s windowless (let’s admit it) basement, ringed with fake plants and faux rock formations. The larger tables, where the conversation were the loudest and the drinks, not by accident, most plentiful, managed to overcome those deficiencies most. There will always be a time for white-napkin eating, but I found it harder to resist the allure of the Wet-Naps on the upper floor. The wraparound bar sits under a Korean hanok roof, a gift from the Yoos senior and the old New York Kimchi. The first rule of beneficent development is don’t forget where you came from. While you’re waiting for Intelligence to Awaken Mankind — and it may be a long wait — it’s good to know that happy hour starts at 10:00 p.m.
Golden HOF and NY Kimchi
Grill, Please
If you’re interested in the K-BBQ options, take care to book a table with grill — they don’t all have one. (Those that do are equipped with enough ventilation to ensure you won’t head home smelling like caramelized galbi marinade.)
… and a Show
Seeing something on Broadway? Golden HOF has quickly become my favorite pre-curtain meal (not that it has much competition from the farther-west Theater District).
… and the Art
Don’t miss the small collection of art on the walls — like a shadowbox sculpture of miniature Korean arcade games — on loan from the Korean American Artist Collective (KAAC), and all for sale.
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