Daltokki

Where western folklore sees a face in the moon, East Asia sees a rabbit pounding rice cakes under a cinnamon tree. The restaurant is named for it: daltokki, the moon rabbit. The image goes back to a 14th-century bronze disc from the Sinan shipwreck, now in the National Museum of Korea.

The legend carries three things: abundance of harvest, longevity, and vitality. I wrote them on the entry wall.

From there the room follows. An aged brass moon is the signage, and bamboo louvres come from the timber lattice of a hanok window. The lattice does what it does in a hanok: it divides without closing, so you can tell someone is on the other side without seeing who.