Photo by Peter Ho
Chef Brian So, whose Spring restaurant in Marietta was awarded one Michelin star in 2024, is ready for his next adventure. In addition to remodeling Spring, which will reopen next year, So has been working on an authentic Korean restaurant called Spring 2nd Branch, also in the Marietta Square, with business partner and sommelier Daniel Crawford. Slated to launch in early September, Spring 2nd Branch is inspired by restaurants So ate at as a child.
“It’s the type of restaurant that’s very personal to me,” he says. “I have a soft spot in my heart for this type of Korean restaurant that serves a broad menu.”
He adds that most new Korean restaurants are more specialized and streamlined to focus on a single offering, such as fried chicken or cold noodles. “I want to represent what Korean food is about—and that’s not just Korean barbecue,” he explains.
Photo by Peter Ho
As such, his menu is categorized into appetizers, meat / fish and seafood, rice / noodles, steamed egg, soups, silken tofu stew, hot pot, and street food. Highlights include gamja tang 1 (spicy pork neck stew with potato and perilla), jogaetang (steamed clams with chili, scallion, and chrysanthemum greens), and soondae guk (house-made blood sausage soup with pork belly, offal, garlic, chive, and perilla seed).
“Gamja tang is the perfect example of what Korean food really is: a comforting stew with pork neck. A meal isn’t complete to us without some sort of broth,” So says. “It’s my all-time favorite dish.”
Beverage offerings include makgeolli (Korean rice wine), soju, beer, wine, and whiskey. Local company Minhwa Spirits is offering a low-ABV version of makgeolli on tap, while Brooklyn-based Hana provides a 16 percent ABV version. Minhwa is providing soju options as well, and a soju cocktail will be available. Crown Royal whiskey may seem out of place, but So says his father always had it in the house. In contrast to Spring nearby, wine offerings will be limited to three, and the beers are all Korean—think Cass, Terra, Kloud, and Kabrew Kumiho IPA.
Photo by Peter Ho
“Ice cold beer with spicy Korean food never disappoints,” So says. “We want Spring 2nd Branch to be loud and high energy with food and drinks flowing.”
The 84-seat restaurant will feature a climate-controlled, red brick-enclosed patio with garage doors connecting it to the dining room. Inside, expect black brick, dim lighting, neon signs, and two TVs playing Korean music videos. Diners enter through a colorful, narrow hallway stacked with dry goods, “reminiscent of walking down the aisle of H Mart,” So says. There are no windows in the dining room. This is intentional to provide an escape. “You can lose yourself a little bit and forget where you are,” he says.
He says despite the name, Spring 2nd Branch should be the opposite of Spring. “I don’t think I’ll do anything similar to Spring again,” he says. “I imagine it would be kind of boring—I wanted to do something different for my personal growth and gratification. I want to gain experience in all different types of food service businesses.”
Photo by Peter Ho
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