Soup On A Schedule

At new Korean hot-pot restaurant O:N, the appetizers nearly upstage the main event.

- Adam Platt

WHAT STRANGE ALCHEMY of ingredients goes into creating the kind of buzzy mainstream moment Korean cooking seems to be enjoying in New York (and therefore the world) these days? It helps to have a deep, time-tested culinary tradition, of course, and a charismatic, groundbreaking chef (a.k.a. David Chang) who can rework and translate this tradition for the masses in the way Jacques Pépin did during the great French boom of the ’60s and ’70s. It helps to have a vibrant generation of empowered cooks who share the stage at about the same time (Douglas Kim at Jeju Noodle Bar, Junghyun Park at Atomix and Atoboy, Hooni Kim at Danji, and the veteran Jenny Kwak with her great new seafood joint, Haenyeo), and it helps to have inventive entrepreneurs, like the ones at Hand Hospitality (Atomix, Atoboy, the wildly popular Her Name Is Han), who are constantly adapting and refining their new projects to changing tastes on the ground.