N E X T . 〉

Dancing Cooks (춤요리사): The No-Menu Restaurant

2010 ‧ Anyang Public Art Project, Seoul

  • Culinary placemaking ‧ negotiated cooking ‧ alternative economies ‧ revitalising traditional market

Commissioned by Seoksu Art Project and Anyang Public Art Project 2010, in collaboration with HanSam Son, HyeRyeon Jang, YoungDae Im, ChanEung Park, YongJa Park, SoYean Goak, YoonJi Lee, Eunsun Kim, Soyoung Hyun, Palash Bhattacharjee, Marc Vincent Cosico, Jim Allen Abel, Ian-John Hutchinson, Ibai Hernandorena, Gabriele Horndasch, and Dorota Podlaska.

Reviving a vacant store inside a traditional marketplace, this restaurant operated without menu and money. Guests needed to bring ingredients (sourced nearby) and openness to join the revolving conversation on food origin, meal planning and task sharing. This generated a synergies among shopkeepers, neighbours, and guests over three months. The light-filled space was dominated by one square table for opening up ingredients, ideas, and improvisation. The interior wall mapped out a food guide of the marketplace, and the mobile pizza oven was conducive to Korean BBQ.

Dancing Cooks
Cooking, eating, cleaning, and socialising assembled on one single table.
Community-run, open kitchen to reinvigorate a desolate traditional wet market.
Restoring vacant shop into a welcoming place with local resources.
Consulting with fellow market vendors to introduce and find name for do-it-together eatery.
Guests were asked to source food ingredients inside the market using the mapped food guide on the wall.
Visitors, vendors, neighbours walked in and became the chef of the moment.
Improvising with the ingredients on the table was often the call of the hour.
The mobile pizza oven being saved from the typhoon downpour.
Wood-fired mini bakery for oven-fresh pizza, bread, pastries, even Korean chicken BBQ.
Dancing Cooks
The assembly of food and people was unpredictable every day (and night).
Dancing Cooks
Food guide on the kitchen's wall helped integrated it with the market community.