Trid

A Second Floor in Gangnam That Earns Its Stars Quietly

Seoul's contemporary dining scene has reorganised itself around a clear question of positioning: do you compete on spectacle or on substance? The bolder Gangnam rooms answer with grand entrances, tasting-menu theatre, and price points to match. Trid answers differently. The address — a second-floor space on Seolleung-ro 162-gil in Gangnam-gu — offers no marquee signage moment, no ground-level street presence designed to stop pedestrians. That restraint is deliberate, and it tracks with a pattern visible across several Korean contemporary restaurants that have found Michelin recognition without building their identity around ceremony.

The Michelin Plate, awarded consecutively in 2024 and 2025, is a signal worth reading carefully. It does not indicate the star-level cooking found at multi-course destination rooms like Jungsik or Gaon in Seoul, but it does mean Michelin's inspectors have returned and found cooking worth recording. In practical terms, a Plate at the ₩₩₩ tier means the kitchen is producing at a level where the price-to-ambition ratio works in the diner's favour , the core of what makes a room like this worth understanding on its own terms.

Where Trid Sits in Seoul's Contemporary Tier

Contemporary cuisine in Seoul currently divides across two price bands that function almost as separate categories. The ₩₩₩₩ tier , where Solbam, Eatanic Garden, and venues like Zero Complex operate , demands a significant per-head commitment and typically delivers a structured tasting format with matched beverages and the full ritual of premium service. The ₩₩₩ tier asks less of the wallet and, in weaker hands, delivers proportionally less. Trid is part of a smaller group within that middle tier where ambition is not scaled down to match the price.

Comparison venues like L'Amitié hold the same ₩₩₩ position in Seoul with a French-leaning contemporary approach. Trid's contemporary classification keeps it less anchored to a single culinary reference , a positioning that gives the kitchen more flexibility but also means it needs to articulate its identity through execution rather than category shorthand. The 4.8 Google rating drawn from 28 reviews is a small but consistent signal: the guests who leave scores here are not doing so perfunctorily.

For further context on how Seoul's contemporary rooms sit relative to each other, our full Seoul restaurants guide maps the category across neighbourhoods and price bands.

The Value Logic at ₩₩₩

Seoul's dining market has trained a generation of serious eaters to expect that Michelin recognition carries a steep price tag. That assumption holds at the star level , the three-star and two-star rooms in the city price as destination experiences by global standards. At the Plate level, the calculus shifts. A Plate signals that inspectors found cooking worth recommending without implying that the format, the service architecture, or the beverage program has been built to justify a ₩₩₩₩ cover charge.

Trid operates in this more accessible register. The ₩₩₩ pricing puts it in the same bracket as rooms like Restaurant Allen and Exquisine , Seoul contemporaries where the conversation centres on what the kitchen is doing rather than how much ceremony surrounds it. For a diner weighing an evening in Gangnam, Trid occupies the position of a room where the cooking is the point, and the price reflects that without apology.

Internationally, this approach has clear parallels. Alo in Toronto and Orfali Bros in Dubai each built reputations at contemporary mid-tier price points before the awards caught up. César in New York City follows a similar logic. The pattern is consistent: in markets where fine dining inflation has pushed the top tier beyond routine visits, the ₩₩₩ Michelin-recognised contemporary room becomes the room that serious diners return to most often.

Gangnam-gu as a Dining Neighbourhood

Gangnam-gu concentrates more Michelin-recognised restaurants per square kilometre than any other district in Seoul, and that density shapes how individual rooms are perceived. A venue that might read as ambitious in a less-competitive neighbourhood reads as measured here. Trid's second-floor positioning on Seolleung-ro 162-gil places it away from the Apgujeong cluster and the main Cheongdam corridor, in a part of the district where the dining rooms are slightly harder to stumble upon and slightly more likely to be sought out deliberately.

The neighbourhood's character at this end of Gangnam tends toward lower-volume rooms with less foot-traffic pressure, which generally allows kitchens to operate at a more considered pace. For visitors building a Seoul itinerary, this pocket of Gangnam-gu sits alongside other destinations worth noting: 권숙수 (Kwon Sook Soo) is close by and operates at the higher end of the Korean contemporary tier. For those extending beyond Seoul, Mori in Busan and Baegyangsa Temple in Jangseong-gun offer reference points for how Korean dining ambition operates outside the capital.

Seoul's broader hospitality picture , hotels, bars, and experiences , is covered in our full Seoul hotels guide, our full Seoul bars guide, our full Seoul wineries guide, and our full Seoul experiences guide.

Planning Your Visit

Address: 2F, 16 Seolleung-ro 162-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul 06014. Price range: ₩₩₩ (mid-range by Seoul contemporary standards). Recognition: Michelin Plate 2024 and 2025. Reservations: Booking method not confirmed in available data , check current channels before your trip. Dress: No dress code confirmed; smart casual is the norm for Gangnam contemporary rooms at this tier. Getting there: Gangnam-gu is well-served by Seoul Metro; the Seolleung area is accessible from Seolleung or Yeoksam stations on Line 2.