The murmuring, deferential patrons who manage to find a spot at the modest, twelve-seat bar are chosen at random, by a computerized system that seems designed not to entice people to dine at Momofuku Ko but to drive them away. These seats can be booked only a week in advance, and only by logging on to the Momofuku Website. The computer begins taking reservations each morning at ten o’clock, and thanks to the legions of devoted and increasingly frantic Chang groupies (the 30-year-old chef was just nominated for his third James Beard award, and has been the subject of many glowing profiles in many glossy magazines), they’re gone not in minutes but in seconds. Under these trying conditions, getting in the door once, let alone the three times most critics prefer, could take months or even years.
So how do you crack this fiendishly egalitarian, New Age reservation system? It helps to have the services of many diligent assistants willing to peck at their keyboards like gaming zombies for an entire week. Is it worth the aggravation? This depends, I suppose, on your point of view. One reason Chang is regarded as a revolutionary by a new generation of diners and cooks is his gleeful willingness to take the old-line, haute cuisine restaurant conceits and smash them to bits, while still cooking inventive, high-quality food. The name of this willfully anonymous anti-restaurant is barely visible on the door, and the façade is sheathed in what looks like high-tech chicken wire. Inside, there are no waiters, no decorations on the plain butcher-block walls, and no printed menu. Chang’s inspiration is the classic Japanese bar-dining model practiced, most notably in New York, by Masa Takayama at his uptown restaurant, Masa. But the price of a single omakase meal at Masa is $400. At Momofuku Ko, my leisurely, inventive, often wickedly delicious ten-course dinner cost $125.
-NY MAG
