Jua – wood fire and precision in Flatiron

On a quiet stretch of East 22nd Street in Flatiron, chef Hoyoung Kim runs a dining room built entirely around a wood-burning grill. JUA — pronounced "joo-ah" — is Kim's own description of the place: a gift to his firstborn daughter, whose name signifies "joie" in French, built around an original tasting menu that treats wood fire as a technique for almost every course rather than a single showpiece dish. Kim spent eight years working his way from line cook to executive chef at Jungsik, the two-Michelin-starred Korean restaurant in Tribeca, and trained at Ecole Ferrandi in Paris before a stage with chef Pascal Barbot at the three-Michelin-starred L'Astrance. He opened Jua in 2020, and the MICHELIN inspectors recognised the kitchen within a year, awarding a star in 2021 that the restaurant has held every year since. It now carries One MICHELIN Star, for cooking that treats Korean tradition as a living technique rather than a theme.

01The room and the setting

Inside, Jua reads as a loft rather than a conventional dining room. Decked out with exposed brick walls, distressed wooden ceiling beams, soft mood lighting, and polished concrete floors, the space feels industrial without turning cold. There is a small bar up front with room for about six patrons and an open kitchen on view in the back, so the wood fire itself — not a hidden kitchen — sets the rhythm of the room. The long, loft-like dining room is warmed by the glow and aroma of the wood-burning grill, lending both character and a subtle smokiness to the experience.

02The chef

Hoyoung Kim is the chef and owner at Michelin-starred restaurant JUA in Flatiron. Before striking out on his own, he spent eight years at Jungsik, working up from line cook to executive chef of its two-Michelin-starred kitchen in Tribeca — an apprenticeship that shows in Jua's exacting plating and restraint. His training also runs through Paris, with a diploma from Ecole Ferrandi and a stage under chef Pascal Barbot at the three-Michelin-starred L'Astrance, an influence still visible in the French technique laid beneath Korean flavour throughout the menu. He was awarded a Michelin star for his work at Jua, and later opened Moono in NoMad as part of Hand Hospitality Group's growing portfolio of restaurants, a sequel intended as a bridge between more casual and fine-dining Korean restaurants in the city.

Insider tip

Dinner only, Tuesday–Sunday, 6pm–11pm; booking well ahead is advised.

03The cooking

The tasting menu runs seven courses, each shaped by a different wood-fire technique rather than a single grilling style. Raw fluke from Jeju Island is dressed in a chilled, spicy broth for the mulhoe; Spanish branzino is dry-aged, then finished over embers for a shatteringly crisp skin; and Australian lamb is cooked whole over the wood fire until the char sits exactly where the kitchen wants it. Elsewhere on the repertoire, kimbap might hold truffle, caviar and pickled mountain yam, while barbecued ribs come with crisp lotus root and persimmon — reinventions that work from inside Korean tradition rather than against it.

04What to order

The seven-course tasting, read on the menu in October 2026, runs Caviar Kim, Mulhoe, Jook — with a $20 supplement for abalone — Branzino, Duck & Chan, Apple and Goguma Juak, priced at $150. An optional Uni Kim supplement is available for $32. Jua's menu format has not changed since its opening: a handful of courses, each built to let one wood-fired or raw ingredient carry the dish rather than crowd it with garnish.

05Wine, booking and the neighbourhood

Drink pairings range from a six-glass wine pairing at $110 to an all-French selection of four glasses at $170 or five at $215, alongside a five-pour non-alcoholic pairing at $85. The room is small, so booking is hard; reserving well in advance is the rule, not the exception. Jua is open for dinner only, Tuesday to Sunday from 6pm to 11pm, and closed on Mondays. It sits in Flatiron, close enough to the Flatiron Building that the address is sometimes filed under NoMad, a corner of Manhattan that has become one of the centres of New York's modern Korean dining scene — a wave of young Korean chefs applying Western fine-dining principles to traditional tastes, with Jua's wood-fired tasting menu among the best examples of it.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.