Italian restaurant Peninsula
Lotte Hotel, 1 Songong-dong | Jung-gu, Seoul 100-070
South Korea
Spacious restaurant
Nice distance between the tables
I ate in the Peninsula “Italian Trattoria” restaurant at the Lotte Hotel shortly after arriving there. Why Italian in Korea? No particular reason – except that just after a +15 hour journey, it looked more simple and relaxing than any of the (many) other restaurants in this large hotel. In keeping with my desire for something simple, I took a pizza.
Mega CC beer
The meal started with a basket of freshly baked bread. This came with extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dipping. The bread was excellent – wonderfully fresh, crispy outside and moist in the middle. I could have just eaten that and would have been happy With it, we both took a local beer called Mega CC which was very cold and refreshing. Our starters were a salad (nice and fresh) and a creamy pumpkin soup – which my colleague reported to be excellent.
Calzone pizza
Whilst my colleague chose pasta, I decided on a simple calzone pizza – with four kinds of cheese. It came in one piece, but the waiter cut it in slices in front of me (not needed, as I would never eat pizza with my fingers in a restaurant). Sadly this restaurant didn’t have chilli oil, though the pizza came already drizzled with olive oil. Overall, it wasn’t at all bad. I figured I was probably taking a bit of a risk with pizza this far away from Italy, and it wasn’t exactly the light and crispy pizza base I most like. But at the same time, it was far from the thick, stodgy bread base that ruins many a good pizza. So overall, I left quite happy.
Cost & conclusion: The bill for two starters, one pizza, one pasta dish and two beers came to 246,000 Korean won (about £120). That is certainly far from cheap, and without any doubt I could have got better and cheaper by going outside. It’s hard to talk about value for money in a hotel restaurant though, and there is a price to be paid for convenience.