"Beer and meat — that's the baseline, isn't it?"
The Stella Artois dining event held on July 26 at Mongtan in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, was, in a word, dazzling. Mongtan itself is one of those "hip places" that has been booked out for months. Add Nanro-hoe to that setting and a joint Stella-beer dinner at Mongtan turned into a stand-out night. It was the first time the restaurant had been booked as a private venue, and, by all accounts, the 60 or so guests were stuffed to the brim between Mongtan's menu and Stella beers.
Nanro-hoe is a group formed voluntarily by some of Korea's leading figures in the F&B industry. It started in February 2022 when Chef Choi Jung-yoon of Sempio's Woorimat Research Center gathered a few chef friends around the idea of "just grilling some meat." Built around her, Nanro-hoe grew in under two years into a large club of some 300 experts spanning restaurants, food, distribution and marketing. Together they debate the best possible ways to build up hansik.
Nanro-hoe formed out of the conviction that Korea shouldn't miss its golden moment as K-food goes global. The name comes from nanro-hoe (煖爐會), the Joseon-era gatherings in which people would sit around a charcoal brazier and eat grilled meat together. Records show 18th-century Silhak scholars such as Park Ji-won and Jeong Yak-yong enjoyed the practice.
Nanro-hoe now brings together not only leading names from the restaurant industry — Cho Jun-mo of Mongtan (famous as the "meat spot with a queue"), Park Soo-kyung of Geumdwaeji Sikdang, Han Choong-hee of Geum-to-il Champagne-ppa (who runs 11 restaurant brands) — but top chefs as well: Chefs Park Jung-hyun and Park Jung-eun of Manhattan's Atomix (two Michelin stars); Chef Cho Hee-sook of Hansik Gonggan, widely regarded as the "godmother of Korean cuisine"; and Chef Ok Dong-sik of Ok Dong Sik, whose bowl was named among The New York Times' best dishes. F&B executives have joined too, including Kim Sook-jin, the leader at CJ CheilJedang responsible for the Bibigo brand, and Lee Jun-beom, CEO of GFFG (which runs Knotted).
The night also drew a strong turnout from those shaping Korea's gastronomy culture — food influencers such as Mattagoras (Ahn Yoon-se) and Bitter Fan (Han Choong-hee); and chefs Joseph Lidgerwood, Kang Min-chul and Kim Hee-eun.
Nanro-hoe styles itself as "a gathering of intellectuals who enjoy the good life," but it's not merely a social club. It has been evolving into an academy — a place where members trade information on how to build a restaurant that lasts 100 years, how to market a brand, and where they hold panel talks with experts to push food culture forward. Recently the group has stopped holding regular meetings; as it grows, the fear is that the original spirit fades. Even so, the subject they can't stop wrestling with is Korean BBQ — what charcoal to use, what grill plate to use, all of it debated with real heat.
The Mongtan gathering tried something new: three groups — Stella Dining Club, Nanro-hoe and influencers — sitting at the same table. Held as the first exchange dinner for Stella Dining Club members, under the theme "the moment flavor becomes value and pungnyu," the evening drew figures such as the food influencer Mattagoras.
The pairing that night — Stella with Mongtan's own take on Korean traditional meat — was the kind of sequence you rarely see anywhere else. Across roughly two hours, the 60 attendees drained 240 bottles of Stella. The course began with hanwoo yukhoe, moved to a seasonal seafood mulhoe (rare on Mongtan's usual menu), and continued through Mongtan's signatures — udae galbi, grilled ox tongue, and hangjeong (pork jowl) grilled with doenjang. From there came straw-smoked seasonal seafood, a naengi (shepherd's-purse) doenjang soup made from greens the team had been holding since spring for this very night, fried rice, and finally Mongtan's naengmyeon and bibim-naengmyeon.
A Nanro-hoe spokesperson said: "Stella Artois and Nanro-hoe both encourage occasions where different worlds meet through gastronomy. Food is an important medium — it deepens communication and bonds between people."
Nanro-hoe and Stella are each moving toward their own goals. Nanro-hoe is thinking through the globalization of K-food, while Stella is working on menus that pair more easily.
A Stella spokesperson explained: "Stella Dining Club is open to any adult who is actively sharing about gastronomy or dining on social media. We'll keep reinforcing the value of a premium beer that belongs at the table."
Stella Artois is a premium beer with more than 600 years of Belgian brewing heritage. Brewed since 1366, Stella has earned its global reputation through craftsmanship and an uncompromising commitment to quality. Stella Artois is accepting applications for the fourth cohort of its private gastronomy circle, Stella Dining Club, through August 7.
· Original (Korean): sedaily.com
