Hot on the heels of Rock Lobster’s opening, brothers Leemo and Leeto Han have launched Ossington’s newest restaurant, OddSeoul. Those acquainted with their popular Wellington Street American-Korean restaurant Swish by Han will find the hip-hop and reclaimed wood aesthetic familiar, but instead of serving downtown lunchers, OddSeoul is pegged as a place for a night out, complete with mood lighting and bar-height communal tables. Most of the decor was sourced from a friend’s dad’s junkyard, including a host of ’90s boom boxes, a glowing red “Prescriptions” sign and an old Olympic diving board cut down to a bar shelf. The food is of similarly mongrel origins: the Hans are not about pretty plates, but instead try to elevate Korean staples with global flavours.
The focus at OddSeoul is currently on late-night eats, available until 2 a.m. The short night menu includes a flat top–grilled Philly cheese steak sandwich ($7), a lamb ssäm skewer ($3) and fried spicy Korean chicken wings ($5), all individually portioned. At dinnertime, OddSeoul offers a family-style menu, with combo sizes ranging from $20 to $30 per person. Mains include vegetable ssäm and Korean army stew, a dish that emerged from leftover U.S. army food following the Korean war (the Han brothers’ version uses the traditional rice cakes and Spam, but swaps out hot dogs for meaty polish sausages). The brothers are still working out beer and cocktail lists, but expect to see cans of PBR and bottles of 50 alongside fresh takes on classic drinks (their old-fashioned will be called an “Oddfashioned”).
The Han brothers have grand plans for the space. Within the next year, they hope to add a 20-seat backyard enclosed patio and a 25-seat reservations-only second floor, with a possible private rooftop patio too. They’d also like to dedicate the third floor to Korean-style private-room karaoke, and by next summer they hope to be operating during the day as well—which means that, yes, Ossington will soon have another new brunch destination.
ODDSEOUL, 90 Ossington Ave., @TO_ODDSEOULS
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