The scene is a humming restaurant. Patrons dig into bubbling pots of soup and stew, or dunk shots of soju into frosty glasses of Cass beer. Watching over them is an enormous stone lion’s head while fake cherry blossom trees graze the ceiling.

It feels like a counterfeit royal court, with staff getting in on the act too. They express-freight hot dishes to tables and keep you stocked up with banchan such as chilled sweet potato noodles, braised black beans, and sweet and sour seaweed salad.

Craggy chunks of fried chicken come spicy or straight-up, joined by uniform cubes of sweet pickled daikon. Bibimbap can be ordered sizzling in hot stone dolsot, delivering one of life’s simple pleasures: seasoned rice crisped by a warm vessel. If this is regal dining, sign us up.