Yuyuan, the Michelin one-star Chinese restaurant at Four Seasons Hotel Seoul, is teaming up with Sai Yu Hin, Four Seasons Hotel Dalian’s upscale Cantonese restaurant, for a four-hands collaboration dinner titled “Beyond the Wok (BEYOND THE WOK)” on the 27th.
Chefs To Kwok Wai of Four Seasons Hotel Seoul and Shu Feng Chao of Four Seasons Hotel Dalian are joining forces to craft a single multi-course menu that interprets the seasons and sensibilities of Seoul and Dalian under the theme of “spring.”
With more than 30 years in high-end Chinese cuisine, Chef Shu Feng Chao is celebrated for modern reinterpretations of traditional Cantonese cooking. He’s known for a precise approach—masterful timing and disciplined heat control—that lets each ingredient’s natural strengths shine.
Chef To has likewise raised Yuyuan’s culinary profile with delicate Cantonese dishes that highlight Korean ingredients, consistently emphasizing seasonality and ingredient purity. For this dinner, the two chefs have composed a seven-course menu that traces the unfolding of spring through their distinctive philosophies.
Dalian, a major northern Chinese port city, has developed a culinary culture that honors ingredients’ natural flavors—rooted in fresh seafood and long-standing techniques. Its coastal location fosters a deep understanding of seasonal produce and has naturally shaped a cooking philosophy that values balance and restraint.
Seoul, too, translates the rhythm of the seasons into its cuisine, drawing from four distinct seasons and a wide variety of regional ingredients.
Rooted in the Lingnan culinary tradition, this collaboration centers on “spring that blooms at the crossroads of patience, accumulation, and the seasons.” Each city expresses spring through its own environment and tempo: the same foundation, but subtle differences in texture and tone emerge from differing climates and ingredient availability—differences diners will taste course by course.
The four-hands dinner focuses on the essence of traditional Cantonese cooking and the harmony of seasonal ingredients. Across seven courses, the chefs showcase signature techniques—long-simmered stocks, precise heat control, braising—and pair premium Cantonese staples like dried fish maw and aged tangerine peel with Korean seasonal seafood and local specialties, bringing both cities’ sensibilities to a single plate.
The seven-course dinner (₩338,000 per person; approx. $253.50 USD) is available for one night only on the 27th. The à la carte “Spring Journey” runs for lunch and dinner from the 15th through May 15. À la carte selections include: Ewha bamboo shoot and gungchae cold salad (₩32,000; approx. $24.00 USD), matsutake and bird’s-nest soup with white fungus (₩228,000; approx. $171.00 USD), steamed giant grouper with black garlic sauce (market price), and chayote stir-fried with Hanwoo sirloin (₩96,000; approx. $72.00 USD).
Photo: Four Seasons Hotel Seoul
