Japanese Italian cuisine, aka itameshi or wafu Italian, has been growing bigger across America in recent years — in New York, we’ve got the expansion of Pizza Studio Tamaki with Tokyo-style pies this month. But now, a New York chef is asking and answering the question of what a Korean Italian restaurant would serve when Sono opens in the East Village at 176 First Avenue, near East 11th Street, on Saturday, May 16.
Sono is Italian for “I am.” Chef Sechul Yang talks about how the restaurant is a reflection of himself and his culinary background, 70 percent Korean and 30 percent Italian, as a Korean who has often cooked in Italian restaurants (including Maialino, which closed but is coming back in 2027). “I’m not trying to mimic Italian culture, I’m not trying to follow Korean culture,” he says. “This is about myself.”
Sono’s chef Sechul Yang. Ben Hon
(Yang’s also worked at American restaurant Gramercy Tavern, modern Korean restaurant Oiji Mi, and, most recently, of the now-closed modern Korean restaurant Ddobar, where he was the chef de cuisine and a partner.)
Sono’s menu features Italian dishes with Korean ingredients and techniques. Yang finds the overlapping sectors of Italian and Korean cuisines, pointing to similar styles (family-style sharing), vegetables (potatoes), and lots of handmade noodles, from both peninsula-based countries.
But he took caution to not just slap flavors and ingredients together for the hell of it. “It comes in a more natural way of ideas,” he says, “like, how these things can be together and coexist and still taste good, but be different.”
Take the bottarga pasta, a classic Italian dish with salted-cured fish roe sacs. Yang realized it’s similar to two Korean dishes, a side dish of sauteed zucchini and cured shrimp, and al-bap, a bibimbap dish with rice, nori wraps, and different fish roes, served in one bowl of rice.
So the Sono result is the chitarra ($25), where pasta is made with saffron and a yellow zucchini puree, garnished with Korean zucchini, and finished with myeongran (Korean pollock roe), nori, and bottarga. “You get that cured fish (but not too fishy) umami, and you still get that little sweetness coming from the flying fish roe,” he says, and the texture of the roe adds a pop to the noodles.
Octopus at Sono. Ben Hon
Pannacotta comes in a bathtub-shaped jar with a citrus foam and duck-shaped jelly. Ben Hon
Sono’s oxtail fettuccine ($28) meshes cacio e pepe and Korean oxbone soup. He marries an oxtail broth with peppers, cheese sauce, and scallions, with oxtail meat. The vongole (Italian clam linguine) gets smushed with Korean kal guksu (an anchovy broth dish with potato noodles), resulting in a potato-anchovy-onion broth with pureed potatoes, plus potatoes, onions, clam broth, clams, and spaghetti ($27).
Chocolate shavings finish off a meringue cake. Ben Hon
For meatier entrees, the stinco di maiale ($27) is a braised suckling pork shank made with elements of jokbal, a Korean braised pork dish. Yang topped the meat with perilla leaves, gochugaru, and perilla seeds. “Flavoring is slightly more Korean, but the core is more Italian,” he explains. He swaps broccoli rabe and broccolini for a simple yu choy (Chinese bok choy), charcoal-grilled with an anchovy garum.
Cassta gelato, smaller versions of ice cream layer cakes with a torched meringue exterior; tiramisu that swaps ladyfingers for Japanese castella (a meringue cake) and adds Korean grain mixture misugaru to the mascarpone; and the pannacotta served in a bathtub-shaped jar with a citrus foam and duck-shaped jelly.
Sono’s menu is set up Italian style, with antipasti, primi, secondari, contorno, plus a prix fixe starting at $150 for two people. Yang does mention that he can serve 100 percent Italian versions of dishes, if diners want them.
Main dishes are under $50 because Yang didn’t want the costs to be unaffordable. “I don’t want to make it expensive,” he says. “Nowadays the eating out cost is crazy,. it kills the restaurant and the diners. I want to make it as approachable as possible on the pricing.”
Drinks include beers, wines, and house-made infused soju like Korean plums, ginseng, and sakura, served neat or in highballs (Yang thinks of themas Korean amaro).
Potatoes receive a fresh grating of Parm before they hit the wooden table. Ben Hon
A vibrant carpaccio starter at Sono. Ben Hon
The space, which was previously a Black Seed bagel location, continues that Italian Korean them. The 40-seat dining room features checkered floors, displayed clay pottery, a burgundy and dark green color palette, natural woods, and bamboo.
Yang hopes that diners will be curious about his Italian Korean culinary mission. “I want them to come in because of the interest of the cuisine,” he says, wanting them to wonder, “‘Oh, I never actually had Korean Italian cuisine before, what does this look like?’”
Other Korean Italian restaurants in NYC include now-closed Momofuku Nishi and Umma by Noodlelove, and Yang’s goal is to make the latest one approachable: “I want it to still be tasty but in a different way, a flavor combination that could be different than usual, strange but satisfying. The vibe of it is very familiar.”
In late 2025, Yang won a $5,000 cash prize to kickstart the business as part of an investor pitch competition run by Korean American chef Ed Lee out of his D.C. restaurant, Shia.
Sono’s hours are 5:30 to 11 p.m. weekdays and until midnight on weekends.