156 ONEFIVESIX

At 156 ONEFIVESIX, the order has an architecture: precise small plates up front, richer mid-courses in the middle, and a ssam platter built to take over the table. Chef and co-owner MJ Jeong uses that progression to make modern Korean cooking feel paced rather than encyclopedic. Gochujang, perilla, makgeolli, jook and ssam supply the foundation; French technique sharpens the edges without sanding away their Korean character. In West Queen West, the format gives a premium dinner a generous, social logic. The entire progression plays out in a dim dining room with the kitchen visible from the table.

Beef Tartare Tarts make the clearest opening move. Gochujang brings heat, pear gel answers with sweetness, sesame powder adds depth, and buckwheat supplies the crunch around raw beef. From there, Sujebi Pasta turns hand-torn-noodle comfort into a rich middle course with scallops, perilla butter, guanciale and zucchini purée. The kitchen keeps crossing familiar forms without treating fusion as novelty for its own sake. Mushroom Jook makes the point quietly: Koshihikari rice and pearl barley carry a poached egg yolk and Parmigiano Reggiano, creating a savoury pause that belongs between brighter seafood and the final beef course.

Elsewhere, the menu's contrasts grow more assertive while staying legible. Spanish mackerel comes with makgeolli cream, XO, daikon and charred kale; potato pancake is edged with mussels, myeongran aioli, jamón, horseradish and dill. Lobster is pulled in another direction by cucumber noodle, tomato, yuja and pine nut, while pork jowl meets kimchi tomato confit, garlic stems and anchovy glaze. Korean ingredients do structural work in these plates: they set acidity, fermentation, heat and texture rather than appearing as decorative references. Even the drinks stay inside that vocabulary, with the Plum Somaek and Shiso Highball carrying Korean accents into the cocktail list.

The dining format is formal enough for an occasion but loose enough to let the table author its own sequence. Full service and reservations establish a planned-evening rhythm; Korean-accented cocktails and shareable plates keep it from hardening into ceremony. For two diners, a focused order can stop after a few composed dishes and one ssam platter, while a larger group can move through seafood, grains and beef without assigning each person a separate main. That flexibility matters at this level of cooking, where abundance can become excess. ONEFIVESIX gives a planned dinner its shape without locking the table into a tasting menu.

Jeong's double role as head chef and co-owner explains the consistency. Over the restaurant's five-year evolution, the cooking has developed around a modern Korean point of view that belongs to one person rather than a borrowed theme. The menu is broad, but its recurring ideas are disciplined: rice and grain beside dairy richness, fermented notes cutting through fat, seafood meeting herbs and alliums, and familiar Korean formats opened to French-minded composition. That authorship also keeps premium ingredients from becoming a parade of status objects. That authorship has taken shape over five years in West Queen West.

The ssam platters shift the meal to table scale. Prime tenderloin, hanger steak, Australian wagyu and forty-eight-hour slow-cooked kalbi short rib each arrive with lettuce wraps and house accompaniments; the short rib, at seven ounces, gives a shared order a generous final savoury course. Ssamjang, chimichurri, house pickles, white kimchi and salad turn the beef into a sequence of choices rather than a single heavy plate. That ending clarifies why the earlier dishes are portioned and composed as they are. A couple can build a deliberate date-night dinner; a larger table can range more widely without losing the thread. Here, the most complete order is one no diner assembles alone.