
Motte Restaurant & Bar is the Korean dining destination that couple Gloria Hwang and James Park wish they had while they were dating.
Now married 20 years and residents of Canton since 2007, the duo opened OneDo Coffee Roasters on South Lakewood Avenue in 2018. An expansion of their coffee shop is expected to debut at Rash Field in the Inner Harbor later this year, too. Like many transplants, they thought they’d leave the city after five years, but they raised a family here, and Baltimore has become their home.
“You know how some fine dining places can be intimidating and not super comfortable?” Hwang says. “I wanted to create something good for the community.”
In addition to approachability, Hwang and Park say they wanted to offer a more elevated space for Korean food in the city, and one that didn’t serve Korean barbecue. They brought on Hwang’s cousin, Seo Jun-ho, who operates two restaurants in Seoul, to open Motte at 1 North Haven Street in Highlandtown. The restaurant is currently in soft-opening mode, with service expected to be in full swing on Friday, Jan. 24.

The Korean-American community once had a booming presence in Baltimore City, hitting its peak between the 1970s and 1990s. In 1997, Korean Americans owned nearly 2,900 businesses in Baltimore City, namely around the Charles North neighborhood, the site of Baltimore’s first unofficial Koreatown. Now the community has largely moved to Baltimore County, and the concentration of Korean restaurants and businesses are largely outside of city limits.
The initial Korean menu at Motte will offer classics like galbi (short ribs), japchae (sweet potato noodles with varied vegetables including shiitake mushrooms), Korean-style chicken wings, Seo’s famous tangsuyuk (a Korean-Chinese fried pork dish with a sweet and sour sauce), and fried squid using potato starch to give it a balanced batter-to-meat ratio and provide extra crispiness and chewiness. There will also be featured meat dishes like yukhoe, a beef tartare that’s a bit sweeter and nuttier than the more known French version.
As this isn’t hansik, the traditional Korean place setting with rice, stew, and banchan (side dishes), Motte patrons will have a different experience. The dishes will come with a side of pickled radishes and baek kimchi (white kimchi). The team is focusing on elevated service, but the dining room will still be a casual place where “anyone can join.”
Motte will change little to the restaurant formerly home to The Boiler Room, which Hwang says was “bold and cold.” They’ve added new lighting, including a chandelier Hwang thrifted that graces the entrance, and placed greenery to brighten up the space. It’s rustic, industrial, and cozy—with the capacity to seat 25 at the bar, 170 in the dining room, and 50 outside in the warmer months.
Adding to the Korean dishes, the team will also take advantage of the kitchen’s existing pizza oven. “It was a shame not to use it,” says Hwang, explaining that incorporating some American bar food options made sense, especially with Monument City Brewing Company and Urban Axes as next-door neighbors. “It’s also our opportunity to serve the community with a more fast-casual, takeout option.”

To run the bar program, Hwang and Park hired Camille Aoak-soon Ko—an alum of Dutch Courage, The Bluebird Cocktail Room, Dylan’s Oyster Cellar, and the Center Club—and consultant Ashley Mac, the vice president of the Baltimore Bartenders’ Guild (BBG) and the brains behind the baiju program at NiHao in Canton.
While Motte awaits liquor license approval, Ko will highlight Korean-inspired non-alcoholic options, as well as tea service with boricha, a traditional roasted barley tea.
As a Korean American herself, Ko says she’s felt drawn to immersing the culinary side of Korean flavors into cocktails. Her award-winning entry in one of the BBG’s annual Rye’s Up competitions, for example, included jujube and goji berries as a nod to her Korean heritage.
“It felt like fate,” Ko says of her new role. “An opportunity to learn more about Korean flavors and be able to dial in on this specific thing. Outside of pop-ups, I didn’t think I’d have the opportunity to make a Korean-focused cocktail menu.”
Among Ko’s opening lineup of spirit-free sips are the Old Fashioned-inspired 3 Kingdoms (medical botanicals, boricha, toasted rice syrup, and orange peel), the Hope for Spring (aloe juice, plum extract, ginger, and lime), and, Ko’s personal pride and joy, the Double Date—a twist on a Negroni using muddled rosemary sprigs, an NA Aperitivo a la Campari flavor profile, pu’erh tea for smokiness and depth, and chocolate bitters with a dried jujube made into a honey. The pulp from the dates are then made into a little cookie that’s served on the side, meant to enhance the date flavor with the consistency of Fig Newton filling.
“This is a personal exploration of Korean flavors for me,” says Ko. “It’s also going to be a great learning and training bar for people.”

Motte aims to be a bridge between education and the accessibility of Korean food and drinks. Once the liquor license is granted, be on the lookout for traditional Korean bar offerings like soju and so-mek (soju and beer mixed a la boilermaker), top-shelf sojus, and makgeoli—a Korean wine with the effervescence and slight milkiness of a natural wine.
As first time restaurateurs, managing the permits and paperwork has been a challenge. “I didn’t think it was going to take this long,” says Hwang, adding that they received the keys to the site in October 2024. “I’m paying rent, utilities, payroll, and sourcing ingredients until we can open.” But despite the unforeseen delays, the team is excited to share their vision with the community.
The name, Motte, 맛—which in Korean translates to taste/flavor—holds a deeper meaning for the owners. It’s a play on words, with their romanization of the Korean word, taking on the English meaning. To Hwang, Motte—a mound forming the site of a castle or camp—describes the site of a restaurant she laid eyes on in 2019 with dreams percolating for another business venture in the future.
“Before the space was a restaurant, everything was a ruin,” she says. “It was piles of broken brick and ruin on a hill. I thought it was a beautiful space.”