Korean Grill Kensington – better known as KGK – sits on the corner of Courtfield Road and Ashburn Place, tucked beneath the massive block of the Millenium Hotel. It is not, though, a hotel restaurant and has a quite separate entrance and a very different ambience.
Dressed in cool, calm colours, painted glass panels divide the restaurant into sections, with a separate dining area laid out like a bar in front of the chefs, cutting up enormous pieces of beef (there are vegetarian options, too). Most striking of all is that each table has its own central sunken grill – and this is the centre of all the action.
We were there to enjoy the Chef’s Feast. This in itself is an interesting concept because “Omakase” simply means “I leave it up to you” – in this case, the chef. So – and this is something of a relief when you spend your life making decisions – it’s a set piece feast over which you have absolutely no control (though I did ask for smaller portions at one point). And then everything starts to arrive pretty much at once in a delightful performance choreographed by our equally delightful Korean waitress (all the kitchen and waiting staff are Korean). She did explain what every single tiny dish explained but there were so many I’ll stick to the highlights here.
There were, in fact, starters – a kind of prawn fritter/pancake and a dish of roasted vegetables with glass noodles and served with a tomato and grape palate cleanser that was utterly delicious – but the myriad dishes of salads and pickles and dressings were already surrounding the circular grill and you could mix and match all the way through. These little dishes were full of tiny delights: kimchi, spring onion salad, noodle salads, aubergines, bean sprouts, spinach and every kind of pickle. I lost count.
All this time, our grill has been heating up and the first thing to go on was a couple of massive tiger prawns, turned regularly by our waitress who had also brought us a bowl for the shells and some warm hand towels to get rid of any stickiness. Then a wooden board arrived with three different kinds of steak that, having first prepared the grill with some beef fat, she cooked to perfection alongside some veg (onions, peppers, mushrooms).
Once removed from the grill, she cut into thin strips to be dipped into salt and KGK’s signature sauce. This was delicious but the Major and I were daunted by the massive amount of beef waiting to be cooked and sitting on its wooden board next to the grill. We decided to ask for half portions. The Koreans sitting next to us looked at us with amazement – such lightweights.
There are a number of ways to eat the grilled meat. You can dip it in the sauce, mix it with the various condiments and pickles or – and there is a pot full of salad for this very purpose – wrap it in a lettuce leaf along with other goodies. This is surely one reason why there were a number of Korean families there the night we visited – it’s so much fun for the kids. But there were plenty of couples, too. We sat in front of the chefs who would give us helpful tips about what to try with which sauce along the way.
All of this was served with a bowl for water and another for Soju. There is a whole menu for the Soju (Korean rice wine) and the traditional version that we chose comes in a small bottle shaped like a double gourd. It is delicious but pretty strong – around 16% proof, hence the small bottle – and you can have varieties flavoured with grapefruit or grape. There is a small light dessert at the end again chosen by the chef (ice cream in our case) that rounds it all off perfectly.
Delightful service, a fun experience and very high quality ingredients – the Major declared it was the best beef he’d ever eaten. Recommended.
Korean Grill Kensington, Courtfield Road, London SW7 4LH. For more information, and for bookings, please visit www.milleniumhotels.com.
