Diner onFranklin

Twenty seats, no bookings, and a husband-and-wife team who between them cover the whole room: one works the open kitchen, the other the floor, and the arrangement has held since the doors opened at the top end of Franklin Street. The heart of the menu is the babsang, the Korean set built around a protein with rice and a spread of banchan, the sort of everyday home spread rarely cooked for strangers. Around it circle a handful of dishes that have earned their own following: cauliflower fried and slicked with a spicy mayo, tteokkochi skewers, the familiar comforts of bibimbap and bulgogi. Dessert leans away from Korea entirely, to a burnt Basque cheesecake that has become a reason to hold a seat. The scale is the point. Because the pair cook and serve almost everything themselves, the food arrives with the unhurried care of a household kitchen rather than a production line, and the trade-off is patience: there is no phone to ring and no table to hold, so you walk in, add your name, and wait for one of those twenty chairs to free up. For a set built on generosity and banchan, it rewards the wait.