An Ocean Apart

On either side of the Pacific Ocean, there is a Jeju. One is South Korea’s biggest island, renowned for its natural beauty, spectacular seafood, tea and tangerines. The other is a modern Korean restaurant in Tofino, British Columbia. Each is surrounded by ocean and thus blessed with a bounty of produce and proteins—and I’ve been lucky enough to visit both.

Finding Jeju on Canada’s west coast

Jeju Restaurant was opened in 2021 by husband and wife team Sungeun “Sung” Kim and Yunyoung “Dylan” Kim, both originally from Korea. The couple met through working together in a Vancouver sushi restaurant, with Dylan in the kitchen and Sung working front of house. They decided they wanted to open their own restaurant, so the hunt for a location began.

After looking in Vancouver, Dylan and Sung took a spontaneous trip to Vancouver Island to explore their options. Upon arriving in Tofino, they immediately felt the similarities between the surfing town with a population of around 2,000, and their favourite place in Korea. “From the first moment we experienced Tofino, our hearts started to echo,” Dylan and Sung explain. “The allure of nature, the scent of the unseen[…]every scenic view, every breath of air, were all reminiscent of our favourite island in Korea—Jeju Island.” The landscape spoke to them, and after touring a restaurant space in the heart Tofino, they decided to stay and name their new restaurant Jeju.

When it came to menu development, they sought advice from their mothers with the goal of serving “authentic, elevated Korean dishes reminiscent of [our] childhood memories.” Dylan acts as executive chef and his mother, Julie, supports with her more than forty years of professional kitchen experience. The menu reflects shared cultural and generational influences, with some of the more traditional dishes being attributed to “Mama Julie,” while the more modern west coast ones are credited to Dylan. Beyond the flavours, interior design details also transport guests to Korea; for example, upon entering the restaurant, diners are greeted by dol hareubang or tol harubang. Carved from volcanic rock, these cylindrical, big-eyed statues found all over Jeju Island are believed to offer protection, so they are often placed at entryways, as they are at the Tofino restaurant.

Where tradition meets local inspiration

Adding another family link, the team imports ingredients from Sung's grandmother's farm in Haenam, Korea. While there is easy access to local ingredients, obtaining some Korean essentials proves challenging. If ingredients are going to be sourced from Korea anyways, “we thought it would be nice to bring key ingredients from our farm in Korea,” explains Sung, which is where the chilies and sesame seeds used at Jeju come from.

By blending locally sourced ingredients and imported Korean ones, Jeju has created some irreplaceable and unique interpretations of classic Korean dishes. Of course, there is house-made kimchi; japchae, the Korean staple made with sweet potato noodles, is also on the menu, as well as bibimbap, a rice bowl with that comes full of seasonal vegetables, egg, gochujang and bulgogi, ready to be mixed together and enjoyed. The selection of seafood on the menu reflects not only the availability of fresh product given the restaurant's proximity to the ocean, but also the celebration of seafood found in restaurants on Jeju Island. Besides featuring local spot prawns, Jeju Restaurant also has a delicious scallop dish that comes with marinated local kelp as well as kelp salt.

Possibly the most famous dish at Jeju is the galbi, and the owners love it too, because it has “what we try to deliver to our guests: combinations of Korea’s flavours, texture and culture,” Sung explains. And this dish delivers. One of the foundations of Korean cuisine is ssam, literally meaning “wrapped”, and Jeju’s galbi is one of the most luxurious iterations of what is essentially a Korean lettuce wrap. The short ribs are aged for 35 days to create a rich umami flavour and a deliciously tender texture. They are then barbequed and presented theatrically with the bone sliced and arranged, along with an arugula salad, ssamjang, lettuce, pickled radish, jangajji, kimchi and rice. The dish is a celebratory feast built for sharing, a quintessential Korean dish served in a West Coast setting.

An ocean apart, an ocean connected

An ocean apart, the same waters lap onto the beach in Tofino as on Jeju Island, though when I visited the Korean island in 2016, I never thought I would later find a piece of it in B.C. But when I consider the coastal landscapes of both locations, as Dylan and Sung did, it's easy to see why they chose the coastal Canadian town to open their restaurant and offer Tofino visitors and locals alike a taste of Korea from the opposite shoreline.