 This is a full display of Korean food served at Ondal, a Korean restaurant of the Sheraton Grand Walkerhill Hotel. The Ondal restaurant is one of the decreaing number of hansik restaurants in big hotels. / Courtesy of Sheraton Walkerhill Hotel |
Lack of Global Appeal, Recipes Also Weigh on Hoteliers’ Mind
By Kim Hyun-cheol
Staff Reporter
Last October, the Lotte Hotel unveiled a new French restaurant ``Pierre Gagnaire a Seoul,'' the latest branch of a restaurant chain belonging to a three-Michelin-star French chef. The following month, the Westin Chosun Hotel unveiled a renovated edition of its Japanese restaurant.
A month later, however, the Koreana Hotel announced it would close its 30-year-old Korean restaurant, Arirang.
Korea's biggest hotels have been focusing on marketing their restaurants these days, but few include ``hansik'' restaurants.
Of the 18 top hotels in Seoul, only four of them ― Mayfield, Lotte, Sheraton Grand Walkerhill and Renaissance Seoul ― currently run a Korean restaurant, while the rest of have given up hansik operations because of pressure for cost reductions, according to data from the Korea Hotel Association.
Places for foreign cuisine are filling in the void left by the departure of hansik restaurants. At Hotel Shilla, the representative restaurant is Palseon, a Chinese restaurant, while a French restaurant and an Italian one have taken up the spots for now-defunct Korean restaurants at the Grand Hyatt Hotel and the Millennium Seoul Hilton.
JW Marriott, Imperial Palace and Grand Hyatt, foreign-based chains, started without hansik eateries at first.
Profitability is the biggest obstacle for the operation of Korean restaurants. In the past, 17 of the top hotels here operated Korean restaurants, but they started to vanish one by one in 2004, when the Grand Intercontinental, Westin Chosun, Hotel Shilla, Seoul Plaza and Millennium Seoul Hilton among others, shut them down. The Lotte Hotel in southern Seoul closed its Korean restaurant the following year.
Hoteliers say the restaurants are not good to run in terms of making money because of their characteristics. They say the restaurants require more ingredients and more chefs than those specializing in foreign cuisine, and its dishes take longer to prepare. Also, it is not easy to differentiate from other Korean restaurants outside the hotels.
Also, a lot of traveling visitors don't prefer to have Korean food at hotels during their stay, according to them.
``Most of all, not many people seem to take the trouble to visit hotel restaurants to try Korean cuisine,'' said a spokesman of a local hotel, who didn't want to be named.
Some critics, however, say it is an evasion of their responsibility as ambassadors to promote Korean culture to their guests from overseas.
``It's understandable in terms of profitability. But it is still frustrating to see the most famous Korean hotels rushing to close down their Korean restaurants,'' said an official of the Korea Cooks Association. ``As the most known local accommodations overseas, they partly have responsibility for contributing to cultural development, including food.''
For prospering Korean restaurants, they try to make a difference. Mayfield, for example, focuses on royal-style table d'hote dishes at Bongraejeong to appeal to foreign guests. The place tops all food and drink facilities of the hotel in profits.
The same goes for Ondal. Of all the 14 food-related eateries at Sheraton Grand Walkerhill, it usually ranks third or fourth in sales.
Ondal is known for its efforts to develop items that can better appeal to foreigners who are not used to Korean food. One of the most famous products of the hotel is SUPEX kimchi, a premium-quality kimchi.
Still, even some of the few survivors agree that high-end Korean restaurants could be at risk because of the lack of effort to globalize the menu.
``Most budding young chefs here are inclined to specialize in something other than Korean cuisine these days, and even local cooking schools are not supporting appropriate programs for that,'' said Lee Jae-ok, the head chef of Ondal.
The government says it plans on offering a helping hand to Korean eateries, but it appears that it will take some more time to see results.
The Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said it will launch a series of measures to expand Korean eateries in best-rated hotels here starting next year. The ministry in charge of the project of the globalization of Korean cuisine, however, declined to specify detailed measures.
hckim@koreatimes.co.kr
