BEST NEW RESTAURANTS

1 JEONG

KOREAN

1460 W. Chicago Ave.

Noble Square

When chef Dave Park opened Jeong last April, it was an instant hit: polished, assured, delicious. But over the course of its first year, the restaurant has become even more exciting, unpredictable, nervier. Take the tteokbokki, a fine-dining twist on a lowbrow dish, with schmaltz softening the gochujang-slicked rice cakes and mustard seeds adding a textural edge. Park excels at reimagining popular Korean dishes and turning down the volume just enough to layer in flavors. He spent years trying to re-create the aroma of the roasted goguma (sweet potato) sold by street vendors in Seoul before creating his sweet-savory goguma pudding with sunflower granola, sponge candy, and bourbon-barrel-aged soy sauce.

Despite such obsessiveness, nothing at Jeong—whether à la carte or from the almost preposterously affordable seven-course prix fixe menu ($87) — feels the slightest bit fussy. Consider the decor: Park and Jennifer Tran, his partner and fiancée, used wood trim and fabric to imitate the ceilings of a traditional Korean village home. The result is neither twee nor over-wrought, but rather, like everything here, feels both totally