Calong 16, London, interior shot with two diners: ‘Plenty enough spark, light, fire and crunch to intrigue Korean food enthusiasts.’ — Cálong, London N16: ‘There’s plenty enough spark, light, fire and crunch to intrigue Korean food enthusiasts.’ Photograph: Amy Heycock/The Guardian

Cálong, London N16: ‘A delicious, Korean-flecked hotch-potch’ – restaurant review

This is not a Korean restaurant, but neither is it not a Korean restaurant

Cálong in Stoke Newington, north London, poses many questions to the casual diner. Such as: can you really turn Korean kimchi into crisp fritters, in much the same way as the French make beignets with courgette flowers? Or can pork terrine, the centrepiece of any trad French pique-nique, be served with a Korean ssamjang, or fermented soybeans and hot pepper? Some people may say: “Heck, no”, but Cálong’s chef/owner Joo Young Won would disagree.

Won was head chef at Michelin-starred Galvin at Windows for seven years, where he served reassuringly expensive French classics to a moneyed, West End audience who appreciated the tablecloths, prompt service and 28th-floor views of London. Here at Cálong, however, he’s bringing those Euro-dining techniques and flexing them with Korean influences in a pretty but mainly practical room. Cálong, which is very much an independent restaurant, has clearly passed the sniff test with Stokey’s feisty anti-gentrification crowd, who love to gather outside a Gail’s or a Nando’s and wield their Down With This Sort of Thing banners. Then again, it’s hard to take offence at something that’s so wilfully niche as a man serving French-style pressed brawn with bossam mooli, or hwangtae (dried pollock) croquettes with tartare sauce. This is not a Korean restaurant, but neither is it not a Korean restaurant. It is a melange, an experiment, a delicious, Korean-flecked hotch-potch.

Cálong’s ‘very good, crisp, thickly battered take’ on Korean fried chicken, with sweet chilli & peanut. — Cálong’s ‘very good, crisp, thickly battered take’ on Korean fried chicken comes with sweet chilli and peanut.

And, yes, kimchi can be turned into fritters, by the way. I know because I’ve eaten a large plate of them, and dipped them into a pleasingly fiery chilli mayo. To a less able cook, kimchi might prove a bit damp to batter and fry – after all, it’s like trying to do the same to coleslaw – but with Won’s ingenuity, these are just the right mix of funky, crisp and sating. At an earlier Cálong pop-up, he made kimchi risotto.

Those dried pollock croquettes are also adorable: Alaskan pollock, frozen and dried in winter, which turns it a deep yellow (or hwang) shade, are mixed with fluffy potato, then breadcrumbed, fried and perched on a blob of tart, vibrant tartare. And, although there is nothing remotely groundbreaking about fried chicken with sweet chilli and peanut – fried chicken being fried chicken and all that – this was certainly a very good, crisp, thickly battered take.

We lunched at Cálong on a Friday, half-expecting to be the only guests, because that’s the thing with semi-fancy neighbourhood restaurants: who on Earth uses them for lunch? Yet, by mid-service, every one of the dozen or so tables was full. Ladies lunching, gangs of friends, at least two dates. Then again, that’s the thing about gentrification: suddenly you’ve got folk who, at the drop of a hat, fancy a lunchtime onglet with mustard onions and greens for £26 with some sot bap for a further £12 on the side. Sot bap, or Korean claypot rice, is slightly sticky and very fragrant, and at Cálong that day Won made it with earthy mushrooms and brown butter. It’s possibly not £12-worth of exciting, but we live in the land of the pricey side dish these days; a more humble side of winter leaves with pear in a soy vinaigrette was £6.

The ‘incredibly good’ spicy seafood jjamppong and aioli at Cálong, London N16. — Cálong’s ‘incredibly good’ spicy seafood *jjamppong* with aïoli.

We ordered that onglet, and it was nothing short of fantastic. Griddled to a copper brown outside and medium-rare within, it came flanked by some crunchy brassica leaves. Also incredibly good was seafood jjamppong with aïoli, which was a bit like a spicy bouillabaisse and resplendent with langoustine, mussels and squid, and a vibrant orange, garlicky emulsion with enough bite to make your forehead sweat.

There’s an awful lot to like about Cálong; it’s a cool, calm, confident restaurant, staffed by a youngish crew who are clearly not industry veterans, but who certainly know the menu backwards. Those hints of Korea among all the Frenchness may be subtle and sometimes almost moot – for example, the stracciatella with butter beans, AKA a bowl of cheesy beans, had only the merest hint of doenjang paste. But there’s still plenty enough spark, light, fire and crunch here to intrigue even Korean food enthusiasts.

‘Genuinely delicious’: the chocolate cremeux blood orange and roasted tea ice-cream, at Cálong, Stoke Newington, London. — ‘Genuinely delicious’: Cálong’s blood orange chocolate crémeux with roasted tea ice-cream.

We finished with a blood orange chocolate crémeux, which was served sundae-style with layers of blood orange and a slightly bitter ice-cream made from roasted tea. Like so much else here, it seemed a strange idea that sounded as if it might just work, though at the same time perhaps wouldn’t, but in Won’s hands it turned out to be genuinely delicious. Cálong may not have panoramic views of the metropolis, but you can eat for half the price of Galvin and have a wander through Clissold Park and see the goat on the way home afterwards. In many ways, that’s just as good.

Cálong 35 Stoke Newington Church Street, London N16, 020-3561 4798. Open lunch Fri-Sun, noon-2.30pm (Sun 3.30pm); dinner Weds-Sat, 6.30-10.30pm. From about £35 a head, plus drinks and service