Born & Bred — The ₩380,000-a-Person Korean Hanwoo Restaurant That Renamed Omakase

If you've eaten high-end Korean beef in Seoul in the past three years and someone you trust mentioned a restaurant by name, the name was probably Born & Bred (본앤브레드).

It's a four-floor hanwoo (한우) institution in Mapdong (마장동) — Seoul's wholesale meat district — run by a second-generation butcher whose father did the deboning work that made the family business possible. The cheapest tier is ₩165,000 per person. The most expensive is ₩380,000 per person, sits 1–4 people, runs for 2.5 hours, and books out a month in advance.

It's in the Michelin Guide 2025 and 2026. Vogue Korea has explicitly credited the restaurant with creating Korea's hanwoo omakase category as we know it today. Roger Federer ate here during his October 2025 Seoul visit (per Marie Claire Korea). It also did a 2022 collaboration with Dario Cecchini — the legendary Tuscan butcher of Antica Macelleria Cecchini — which is the kind of pairing that signals Born & Bred plays in a global conversation, not just a Seoul one.

Below: the family story, the four floors, what the food actually tastes like, what to order, and how to actually book a table.

The Mapdong meat-family backstory

The owner, 정상원 (Jung Sang-won), grew up in his father's Mapdong meat business. Esquire Korea profiled him in 2022 and called out something most people who only know the polished Born & Bred era miss: he spent years deboning meat in the family's back room. That's where the obsession with cut-by-cut anatomy comes from — not from culinary school, from the actual work of taking a carcass apart.

📍 Find it 본앤브레드 신관 (the new building) — 서울 성동구 마장로42길 1 (마장동 781-15) 156m from Majang Station (마장역). Closed Tuesdays. Book on Catch Table ↗

Mapdong (마장동, also called Majang-dong) is Seoul's wholesale meat district — the place restaurants buy from. There are streets where every shop is a butcher. Born & Bred is the highest expression of what that neighborhood does at scale: the Jung family has a butcher shop (본앤브레드 비프솔루션) in the same district, supplying the restaurants. You're eating beef that traveled meters, not miles.

The cultural rebrand: 맡김차림, not 오마카세

Most Korean fine-dining beef restaurants borrow the Japanese word 오마카세 (omakase) for "trust the chef" tasting menus. Born & Bred deliberately doesn't.

They use 맡김차림 (matgim-charim) — a pure Korean compound that means roughly the same thing ("trusting [the chef's] arrangement") but carries no linguistic borrowing. The B1 SPEAKEASY tier on Catch Table is officially listed as "한우 맡김차림," not "한우 오마카세."

This is a small choice with a large signal. It tells you Born & Bred sees itself as defining Korean fine dining in Korean terms, not adapting Korea to a Japanese template. It's the kind of move Beauty of Joseon makes for skincare — building the brand around uncompromised Korean heritage rather than translating Korea for foreign palates.

The four-floor system

Born & Bred's flagship Mapdong location stacks four distinct experiences in one building. Each floor is a different price tier, a different room, and a different version of "hanwoo dinner."

B1 — SPEAKEASY DINING (한우 맡김차림)

₩380,000 per person · 19–20 courses · 2.5 hours · 1–4 people · dinner only (7pm)

The flagship. A 19-to-20-course chef's-pick menu using the highest grades of hanwoo and seasonal ingredients. Bookings open exactly one month in advance, on the 1st of each month, exclusively through Catch Table. This is the tier Korean food critics talk about. Friends who've been describe it as the version where you understand why people fly in just to eat here.

For groups of 5+, the entire B1 space is available for private buyout (대관) at ₩3.8M total, accommodating up to 10 people (or 20 if the full space is reserved).

3F — PRIVATE DINING ROOM

Dinner: ₩250,000 per person · 13 courses · 2 hours · 2–4 people Lunch: ₩200,000 per person · 8 courses · 2 hours · 2–4 people

A private room on the third floor. Smaller scope than B1 (13 vs 20 courses for dinner) but still covers the major hanwoo cuts in a 2-hour arc. This is the tier that hits the sweet spot for special occasions — anniversary dinners, friend reunions, milestone moments — without committing to the B1 price ceiling. Two seatings per evening (6pm and 8:15pm) and a single lunch seating (12pm).

Bookings open two months in advance on the 1st. Cancellation rules tighten 7 days out (50% fee), and same-day cancels lose the deposit entirely.

2F — CASUAL DINING (캐주얼 테이스팅)

₩165,000 per person · 5 courses · 2 hours · 2–6 people

The "is this place worth the hype?" entry tier. Five courses, all hanwoo-anchored:

1. 육회 (yukhoe) — Korean beef tartare
2. 1++ 한우 6부위 모듬 — six different cuts of grade-1++ hanwoo
3. 차돌박이 솥밥 + 된장찌개 — beef-brisket clay-pot rice with doenjang stew
4. 쌀국수 (ssal-guksu) — Korean rice noodles
5. Dessert

This is the version most foreigners visit first. Easier to book, doesn't require committing 2.5 hours, still gives you the 1++ multi-cut platter that's the Born & Bred signature. The 6-person max also makes it the only tier that works for friend groups.

The butcher shop — 본앤브레드 비프솔루션

Around the corner. Not a restaurant — an actual retail butcher shop where you can buy the same meat the restaurants serve, raw, by weight. Worth a look on the way out if you want to bring some home.

📍 Find it 본앤브레드 비프솔루션 — 서울 성동구 마장로31길 37 bandb.co.kr ↗

What to actually order

Born & Bred is a course-only place above the 2F Casual tier — you don't pick dishes, the kitchen does. But there's one piece of off-menu lore worth knowing about:

The burger is a heavily-recommended add-on. Order the double-patty version, not single. People who eat at Born & Bred regularly describe it as one of the best burgers in Seoul — built from the same hanwoo trim the restaurant breaks down for the omakase courses, ground in-house, on a brioche bun. Catch Table's own restaurant summary calls it out: "the burger you can order on the side is one of the must-try menu items." Don't skip it.

For the 2F Casual menu specifically, the 1++ hanwoo 6-cut platter is the signature — six different cuts (typically including 차돌박이, 부채살, 안창살, 토시살, 갈빗살, and one chef's pick), grilled to spec at the table.

The 2022 Dario Cecchini moment

In June 2022, Born & Bred partnered with Dario Cecchini, the world-famous Tuscan butcher behind Antica Macelleria Cecchini in Panzano-in-Chianti — a 250-year-old family butcher shop that's the de-facto pilgrimage site for serious meat people globally. The collab was a gala dinner at Paradise City Incheon's contemporary Korean restaurant 새라새, featured in Esquire Korea and major Korean food press.

The signal: Born & Bred is in the global butcher conversation. Cecchini doesn't collaborate with random restaurants. The fact that he chose a Mapdong-rooted Korean shop for his Korea moment tells you exactly where Born & Bred sits in the international hierarchy of meat-focused fine dining.

The Vogue + Federer + Oasis moments

Born & Bred has accumulated a long list of cultural co-signs that don't fit the standard "Michelin star" template — they're the editorial-and-celebrity validations that signal the brand has crossed into global luxury territory.

Vogue Korea (November 2024 dining trends piece) credited Born & Bred with creating the entire hanwoo omakase category as Korea knows it today, citing the Jung family's accumulated meat-distribution history as the foundation that made it possible.

Roger Federer ate at Born & Bred during his October 2025 Seoul visit — per Marie Claire Korea's coverage of his trip, the restaurant was one of two restaurants on his Seoul-tour itinerary alongside a stop with the Culinary Class Wars "Napoli Matpia" winner.

GQ Korea (April 2025) recommended Born & Bred Incheon Paradise City as a "where to take visiting rock stars" dinner spot for the Oasis brothers' Seoul tour.

What you don't get from the Michelin badge is captured in this stack of moments: Born & Bred is the restaurant the Korean press recommends when someone famous needs a "this is what Korea is at its best" experience.

Other locations

Beyond the Mapdong flagship, Born & Bred operates two hotel-resort branches:

• 본앤브레드 인천 파라다이스시티 — Paradise City, Incheon (the airport hotel-casino-resort cluster)
• 본앤브레드 부산 파라다이스 호텔 해운대 — Paradise Hotel Haeundae, Busan (per Korean food blogs covering the Busan branch)

Both hotel branches operate course menus similar to the 3F Private Dining tier and book through Catch Table or directly through the hotels.

How to actually book a table

Born & Bred is strictly Catch Table only for the Mapdong flagship. Walk-ins are not accepted, and same-day reservations are essentially impossible.

Tier	Booking opens	Window
B1 SPEAKEASY	1st of each month	1 month ahead
3F PRIVATE DINING	1st of each month	2 months ahead
2F CASUAL TASTING	1st of each month	2 months ahead

Set a calendar reminder for the 1st of the month at midnight KST. Slots disappear within minutes for B1, hours for the others. The Catch Table shop page is at app.catchtable.co.kr/ct/shop/bandb.

Cancellation policy (strict — applies to illness or last-minute schedule changes, no exceptions):

• 8+ days out: full refund
• 1–7 days out: 50% per-person deposit forfeit
• Same day: no refund, no rescheduling

Practical notes

• No elevator. The building is stairs-only between floors. Plan accordingly if mobility is a concern.
• Allergies: hanwoo-only restaurant. No vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, gluten-free, or halal accommodations — they will cancel the reservation if requested.
• Dress code: smart casual to dressy. The Catch Table page lists "전문 소믈리에" (sommelier on staff), which gives you a sense of the room.
• Corkage (콜키지): 2F + 3F = wine free, other liquor ₩50K/bottle. B1 = ₩50K/bottle for everything. One 750ml bottle per person max.
• Valet: ₩3,000. No self-parking — pull up to the entrance.
• Phone: 02-2294-5005 (English limited; reservations through Catch Table is the cleaner path).

Which tier to pick

If you've never been:

• First-timer who wants to know if it's worth it → 2F Casual (₩165K/person). Six cuts of 1++ hanwoo, 2 hours, group of 4–6 friends. Add the double-patty burger.
• Anniversary, milestone dinner, parents visiting → 3F Private Dining (Dinner) (₩250K/person, ~₩980K for 3 with wine). The tier most Korean food critics call "the right balance." Book 2 months ahead.
• You are the kind of person who plans trips around restaurants → B1 SPEAKEASY (₩380K/person). The 19-course version. Book on the 1st of the month at midnight, set an alarm.

Final note

Born & Bred is the rare Korean fine-dining institution that built itself without imitating Japanese omakase culture or French fine-dining grammar. It's a Mapdong butcher's son's vision of what hanwoo deserves to be when nothing is compromised — served in Korean, priced in won, on a stack of four floors above the family's own butcher shop.

The food is the food. But the brand is the bigger story.

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Photos courtesy of Born & Bred (via Catch Table). All factual claims verified via Catch Table, Esquire Korea, Vogue Korea, Marie Claire Korea, and Naver News (April 2026). Personal experience: 3F Private Dining Room, dinner course for 3 with one bottle of wine, ~₩980,000 total.