Baekjeong Comes Back to Koreatown Tomorrow, One Block West of the Old Room

The dining room is built for smoke. Black chairs face tables with a hole for the grill, and a steel hood hangs over each one. A painted Statue of Liberty sits on the far wall among dark screens. Tomorrow, September 23, that room opens as Baekjeong Black at 49 West 32nd Street, inside the Martinique New York. Joseph Ko and Bobby Kwak, who ran the old Fifth Avenue shop, are bringing the barbecue house back to Koreatown.

They opened the Manhattan flagship in December 2014 on the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 32nd Street, with a blessing from Kang Ho-dong. Kang is the South Korean comedian and former ssireum champion, and that first room still carried his name. Ko trained with him one summer in Korean wrestling. The place got loud and stayed booked. Anthony Bourdain ate there in January 2015, and Kwak later told What Now the visit flooded the reservation book. They closed on January 1, 2024, because the corner could not hold the line.

The Fifth Avenue address became Ahgassi Gopchang, the Los Angeles house known for grilled intestines. That room is still open. A block west, Ko and Kwak took the old Kum Gang San floors in the Martinique: about 8,000 square feet on two levels.

Downstairs is lunch, then Yangban at night, a cocktail bar with small plates. Yangban is the Joseon-era word for Korea's old official class. Here it is a place to drink without waiting on a grill. Upstairs, guests pick USDA Prime, dry-aged, or Wagyu from a butcher case the house compares to Seoul's Majang Meat Market, then cook at the table. Baekjeong means butcher. Majang is the Dongdaemun wholesale market that still moves most of Seoul's beef.

Ko and Kwak already cook in this building. Noksu, their twelve-seat Korean tasting counter, sits in the Herald Square subway under the Martinique, behind an unmarked door that used to be a barbershop. The West Coast Baekjeong shops belong to Kijung Hospitality, which opened the first U.S. location in Los Angeles in 2012. Ko and Kwak run the New York rooms as a franchise through Circle Hospitality. They are planning a Long Island City Baekjeong later this season and a downtown Brooklyn shop in 2027.

Hours and reservations are still catching up. Ahgassi is still grilling on Fifth. The new hoods sit a block west.