Innovation: The new flagship restaurant of a Korean barbecue chain looks at home in the high-tech zone of Yizhuang in Beijing.
Well-known Korean BBQ joint Iki’s new flagship restaurant looks right at home in Beijing’s high-tech zone in Yizhuang, Dong Fangyu reports.
The sprawling Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area (BDA) in Yizhuang, a suburb in southeastern Beijing, is an emphatic symbol of China’s innovation efforts.
But besides hosting a slew of companies from high-tech industries, the zone is also home to the flagship outlet of Iki.
What Iki sells is not cutting-edge software, bio medical solutions or electronic devices — it is barbequed meats.
And the restaurant’s new location could not be more befitting. After all, innovation is the name of the game here. Innovation is also what has made Iki such a crowd favorite that customers must at times wait for hours before they can get a seat.
“We are empowered by innovation. This has been our slogan for the past eight years,” says Lawrence Liu, the chef-owner of Iki. “Although it sounds kind of like an IT slogan, that’s what we strive to achieve here.”
Even the decor at its flagship outlet reflects Iki’s unique proposition. The loft-style space the restaurant is set in features four floor-to-ceiling wooden columns, each featuring hand carved patterns that look akin to fish scales, a row of wooden shelves stocked with various bottles of liquor, and an illuminated Himalayan salt-block wall. Completing this industrial chic vibe are the tastefully incorporated glass elements such as the stairs, a strip of mirrors and the aisle that separates the barbeque tables from the classy bar area.
It looks like the work of a renowned interior design firm. But like Iki’s dishes, this scene is an original creation.
“All the designs here, be it the decor or our dishes, are done by us. There is no design company or culinary consultancy involved. Here at Iki, we want to express our ideas freely,” says the 36-year-old, who claims to be a design buff.
As its mantra suggests, Iki’s offerings aren’t the same as a typical, no-frills Korean barbeque joint. Here, the food and drink selections are inspired by his Taiwan roots, the things he loved during his growing up days in the United States, his Korean wife, as well as Chinese cuisine.
Representing a nod to his roots is the hand-made Taiwanese pork sausages which not many restaurants offer because of how time-consuming it is to make the dish. Liu pointed out that factors such as the duration the mixture of meats is airdried, the spices used and even the way of chopping and stuffing the sausage affect the final product. It took him more than two years of studying the traditional techniques to perfect the recipe.
Iki’s offering of six sausages for barbeque also reflects the restaurant’s innovation focus: original, garlic, spicy perilla leaf, black pepper, wasabi and red rice yeast. Diners are recommended to consume the meat with slices of raw garlic, just like how people in Taiwan do.
Meanwhile, the bibimbap, the emblematic Korean stone rice bowl, features Western and Chinese elements such as mozzarella or spicy crawfish.
Having grown up in the US, it comes as little surprise that one of Iki’s signature dishes is the Los Angeles-style short ribs. Another signature dish is the short rib steak, which features a dash of Chinese culture as it is skillfully cut to resemble the shape of dragon’s body. Even the plate it is presented on — a custom-made, dragon-shaped ceramic plate from China’s porcelain capital Jingdezhen — reflects this.
And the rib steak does taste as good as it looks because of its intense flavor and texture. The secret to allowing this piece of unseasoned meat to taste so good, says Liu, lies in the wet-aging method, which refers to aging the vacuum-packed meat in a refrigerator at a specific temperature, duration and humidity for three to four days. This process allows the natural enzymes to be unleashed, in turn enhancing the texture and flavor of the meat.
Likewise, the drinks at Iki aren’t the run-of-the-mill soju or makgeolli that come straight out of a chiller. The bar is clearly Western-influenced, offering a wide variety of Japanese sake, wines, spirits, beers and even creative cocktails such as the mojito-float which is a surprisingly good pairing with the barbequed meats.
But despite its focus on being innovative, Iki was not founded in 2010 based on a desire to stand out from the crowd through fusion cuisine. Rather it was Liu’s way of paying tribute to the touching advice that his late mother left for him at her death bed.
“Right before she passed away, she told me that she would be happy if my brother and I simply did what we love for a living,” recalls Liu. As it turned out, it was food, and not law, that he was more passionate about. After obtaining his master’s degree at the University of British Columbia in Canada, Liu went to Beijing to find his brother Benson, who was working as a bartender, and the siblings then set up Iki, which is the English version of yiqi, meaning “brotherhood code” in the southern Fujian dialect widely spoken in Taiwan.
The choice of concept for their restaurant is also a way of honoring their late mother, who Liu says loved experimenting in the kitchen.
“She was quite adventurous in testing new recipes. Not all of them worked. Some dishes were messed up too,” he says. “To me, cooking has always been about exploration.”
“To me, cooking has always been about exploration.”
Lawrence Liu, chef-owner of Iki restaurant