(Bloomberg) -- In 2015, Brian Kim became known around New York for his viral Korean honey butter chips with ice cream. At his inaugural East Village restaurant, Oiji, people booked seats weeks in advance for the sweet, rich treat that the chef had manufactured.

Now, Kim, who was raised in Seoul, has a new Korean experience for New Yorkers. The chef and Maximilian Soh, the restaurant’s managing partner, are opening a jewel box of a space behind Kim’s Michelin-starred Korean fine dining spot, Oiji Mi, on East 19th Street. At Bōm the $325, 12-plus-course menu focuses on beef. (Bōm is an acronym for “Behind Oiji Mi,” as well as the Korean word for “spring.”) The restaurant opened on Jan. 31.

While Oiji Mi offers Kim’s modern take on classic Korean cuisine— his chilled noodle dish ramyun is topped with an elegant pile of tender, spicy lobster meat—the new space spotlights different high-end meat preparations. “A combination of a chef’s tasting menu and a traditional Korean steakhouse” is how he describes Bōm’s culinary outlook.

Still, not every course is beef-based. Meals start with small bites focused on produce and seafood, such as a tiny osetra caviar-crowned tart filled with pear and tofu, and silky steamed sablefish in a chili-infused broth.

Then come four beef courses. They’re cooked in front of guests on five custom-built brass grills set around the 18-person, horseshoe-shaped counter.

South Korea is stocked with places offering meat-centric tasting menus. These protein parlors often specialize in hanwoo, the country’s most esteemed type of beef. Many chefs, like Kim, find the well-marbled cuts superior to wagyu. “Hanwoo is my favorite meat variety,” he says, adding that it blends the richness of Japanese wagyu and deeper flavor of American beef. Since hanwoo isn’t exported to the US, Kim is building flavor through various aging methods. 

Among Kim’s selections is a 45-day dry-aged rib-eye sourced from Sher Wagyu farm in Australia, which he accents with shaved black Périgord truffle and serves with radish kimchi.

More unique is a tenderloin that he ages for five days in nuruk, a wheat- and rice-based starter culture used to produce Korean alcoholic beverages such as soju. After the beef is rubbed in the powder, which ultimately yields a singular nutty taste, the steak is grilled, then topped with Kristal caviar. Alongside, Kim offers a piece of wet-aged tenderloin garnished with Hokkaido uni, so guests can discover how the aging affects the same piece of beef. He says the caviar’s briny flavor accents the dry-aged beef’s funkiness, while the sea urchin complements the gentle taste of the wet-aged meat. 

Two additional beef courses might include grilled wagyu galbi, the sweet barbecued ribs, with more Périgord truffle and smoked trout roe on a bed of steamed white rice, as well as a cube of Miyazaki A5 wagyu with nabak kimchi (aka water kimchi) in a drinkable broth to balance the meat’s richness. 

Premium beef-focused tasting menus aren’t new to New York. The modern Korean steakhouse  Cote has offered them since 2017. In Koreatown the wagyu-centered tasting menu at Hyun showcases glossy blocks of the fat-marbled meat on Instagram. And the East Village is home to a pair of high-end Japanese wagyu-focused spots: J-Spec highlights myriad wagyu preparations, from nigiri to grilled rib-eye, while Esora offers a longer wagyu-centered tasting menu.

But Bōm is the most stylish, high-end one.

Its sleek, sophisticated look was created by the ubiquitous design firm AvroKO. The room, accessed through a door at the back of Oiji Mi’s dining room, is dominated by a purple-veined, white marble dining counter, giving guests a view of the five chefs cooking on the other side. The striking oak-beamed ceiling is a nod to the design of a traditional Korean home known as a hanok.

“The space’s design is aligned with the food,” says Kim, referring to the blend of classic and modern. Yet his final savory course is an homage to a traditional home-cooked meal that always involves soup and rice, known as hansang charim, or “a well-prepared table of food.” He serves steamed rice mixed with an herbal-tasting Korean leafy green called gondre, along with a kimchi sampling.

Chris Clark, who helms the beverage list at both Oiji Mi and Bōm, likes to pair the hansang charim with a dry French white wine such as chenin blanc; the two restaurants share a deep wine list that mixes small, old-world and organically minded producers. But there’s also the option of the little-known Korean spirit pungjeongsagye—a highly aromatic, mung bean-fermented soju—or a seasonal satsuma and mezcal-spiked cocktail called Desert Vacation.

The meal finishes with desserts from Adriana Adorno Davila, a Jean-Georges alum, including a perilla granita topped with Korean pear sorbet and pomegranate jelly.

Bōm is the latest entrant in New York’s exploding modern Korean food scene. Simon Kim, owner of Cote, which helped start that wave, recently announced a three-floor outpost inside investment firm Olayan Group’s building at 550 Madison Ave., scheduled for 2024. Likewise, husband-and-wife team JP and Ellia Park opened the tasting-menu spot Naru, expanding on Atoboy, which opened in 2016 and focuses on small plates, as well as their two-Michelin-starred Atomix.

Among the leaders of that trend was Kim’s now-shuttered Oiji. Will his famed honey butter chips make an appearance at Bōm? Says Kim: “You never know.”

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