NABI is a contemporary Korean restaurant by Tom Ryu, a chef and restaurateur that is leading the charge with inventive Korean cuisine in Shanghai.
About Tom Ryu
Tom Ryu has quite the fanbase, built up since his time at Jeju Izakaya/Jeju Sagye, which he left recently to establish his own restaurant group P.I.E.
What makes NABI unique is also what Tom does behind the scenes — he started his own import company to bring in lesser seen ingredients from Korea to give the food at NABI its edge.
NABI — The Space
NABI is in WYSH, a new development on Wuyi Lu. The restaurant is located on the second floor, above WULI, Tom’s other concept, a casual Korean restaurant. This is also the same compound where Lawry’s is located. NABI, which means butterfly in Korean, opened early 2024.
The restaurant is designed like a theatre. The color scheme is black, dark and edgy with an imposing bar counter around an open kitchen.
I like restaurants with open kitchens. It’s entertaining and interesting to watch the buzz, even if it’s just the final plating, even more so for discovery menus like this.
From what I could tell, Tom runs a tight ship, and service was synchronized and adept. For character, the personality came from Tom, who visited each guest at least once to introduce dishes, and Park, a young and charming sommelier.
The Menu
This is the second menu of NABI, which will run until August. The third menu will launch in September.
The first course is a cold dish of smooth corn purée with glutinous rice balls, dusted with minari powder and puffed rice. The corn is fresh and sweet, and each bite tasted like summer, and the marble-sized glutinous rice balls were lightly salted and the perfect texture, not too dense with a little bite. A great start.
Next, a comforting dish of congee made with premium seafood. I could eat bowls of this stuff.
Then, a lobster with burnt eggplant, black garlic and caviar. It’s seasoned with persimmon vinegar, one of their self-imported goods, a sweet and mildly tart flavor that lifts the dish.
Following is a soup with brown croaker, beef brisket, and mugwort oil, the latter is typically used as a herbal medicine. The soup is a two-part combination of seafood and beef soup, but it is obviously seafood-forward when it comes to taste. It’s rich and has great depth of flavor. In the center is croaker fish wrapped around beef.
Next, noodles imported from Korea tossed with gamtae, a type of algae in the category of premium seaweed that has a marvelous sea-fresh aroma. It’s topped with sea urchin from Dalian. Fantastic. A dozen more servings, please.
Then, a deconstructed and reimagined Korean street pancake. It has two parts, crumbly pork wrapped with mushroom seasoned with a fermented sauce, and crispy, flaky snapper over a slice of chewy pancake.
The one dish that fell short for me was the chicken with rice cake. The rice cake was desirably chewy, but lacked crisp. It also packed quite some heat. It was alright, but forgettable. I’d also have preferred a palate cleanser, as the following wagyu striploin course was divine, but the first couple bites were lost due to the spice from the rice cake.
The steak was served with traditional jang, fermented sauces infused with crunchy veg as condiments.
Finally, the rice course, a filler and satisfying end to the hot dishes. It’s a lavish seasoned rice tossed with sea cucumber, shrimp, abalone, and lobster, served with an assortment of banchan. It’s pure comfort. A second soup is also served, a broth of beef, squid, and tofu, flavored with fermented chili paste.
The meal ends with beet and green apple sorbet, followed by petit fours of yellow watermelon jelly, black sesame chocolate, and a traditional Korean donut made with sticky rice. The donut was great. It’s like a cross between a fried rice cake and a gulab jamun, chewy, crispy, and syrup soaked, except not that sweet.
In Summary
Overall, it exceeded my expectations.
I had heard mixed reviews about the first menu. This was quite enjoyable. It was balanced with delicate and thoughtfully presented dishes, as well as hearty comforts like the rice set. It is a lot to take in, especially if you don’t know much about Korean food culture. But they do give you the menu as a keepsake, which has a glossary of sorts, a nice touch.
NABI is difficult to book. Reservations open on the 1st of every month at 3pm and are often snapped up.
The tasting menu is ¥1,088 per person plus 10% service charge. Korean drinks pairing is ¥388. Dinner has two rounds, 6pm to 8:10pm, and 8:30pm to 10:40pm. Deposit of ¥1,000 per person required.
How To Book
NABI only accepts bookings via their WeChat mini-program.
NABI
Address: 201, Bldg 1, WYSH, 168 Wuyi Lu 武夷路168号WYSH翡悦里1号楼2层201室
Hours: Tue-Sat, 6pm-11pm
