It’s also already popular, and there isn’t really anywhere to stand and wait for reserved tables, and the doorway bottlenecks pretty easily, but it’s all upbeat enough to land more like a lark than a nuisance. Mari is fun, as is Kochi, particularly for expensive tasting destinations where the evening’s spend starts at $145 per person. “The guests have to enjoy, they have to have a good experience. “A restaurant is not only selling the food,” Shim tells me by phone the day of Mari’s debut. Don Don, the latest expansion in the Shim culinary universe, takes us from Korean skewers to hand rolls to barbecue. In between, he’s also collected Michelin stars for the first two, and snuck in Mari Ne as a more casual iteration of its namesake. First was Kochi, in 2019, followed by Mari in 2021, then Don Don this past September. With his latest restaurant, chef Sungchul Shim has established a pattern of opening a great new place every other year.