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Like Mario Batali and the great British chef Fergus Henderson, David Chang is a card-carrying member of the “Refined Meathead” school of cooking. Meathead chefs have a fondness for pork products and for offal (“We do not serve vegetarian-friendly items,” says the menu at Momofuku Ssäm Bar), and the best of them, including Chang, have a knack for creating big, addictive flavor combinations that get under your skin. Like Batali, Chang—a Korean-American, raised in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.—mines his own ethnic background for inspiration. The past couple of years, he has been demonstrating his talents on a more modest scale at his madly popular original restaurant. But the newest Momofuku (the word means “lucky peach” in Japanese) is larger and more ambitious than the original, and after a period of bumbling experimentation (at first Chang insisted on selling only a form of Asian burrito called a ssäm), it has grown into a showplace for the chef’s unique brand of earthy, Asian-accented Meathead cuisine. — Adam Platt

Ssäm Bar's Bar

Despite the presence of Don Lee, the bar is not a cocktail lounge: it’s a curated selection of 40 brown spirits, ranging from $9 to $50 a pop, and served neat, on the rocks, in a Manhattan, or in an old-fashioned. The focus is on the food, not the booze; the only way you’re getting a drink is if you’re there to eat.

Ideal Meal

Fried Brussels sprouts, three-terrine sandwich, spicy tripe, warm veal-head terrine, Momofuku Ssäm

Related Stories

Best of New York Awards

• Best Biscuits and Gravy (2009)
• Rob Patronite: Best New Restaurant (2007)

Featured In

• Adam Platt's Where to Eat 2010 (1/4/10)
• Eat Cheap 2009: Tasty Sandwich Creations (7/20/09)
• Adam Platt's Where to Eat 2009 (1/5/09)
• Where to Eat 2008 (1/7/08)
• Keeping Up With the Momofukus (9/3/07)
• New York's Best Cheap Eats 2007 (7/30/07)
• Grade AA: Ten Egg Dishes to Cluck Over (4/9/07)
• Radical Chef David Chang and the Plight of the Asian Burrito (1/22/07)
• Holiday Parties by the Experts: Fête's Jung Lee, Momofuku's David Chang, and Other Music's Duane Harriott (11/13/06)
• Restaurant Openings: Momofuku Ssäm Bar (8/28/06)

Recipes at Momofuku Ssäm Bar

• BLT With Spicy Mayo (2008)
• Bo Ssäm (2006)