Chef Jay Lee opens Jin Guk in Macquarie Park on Monday, October 12, by leaving bones out of the pot; the former Soul Dining head chef has built a 35-seat Korean broth restaurant at Shop 10/101 Waterloo Road around gomtang, Cheorwon rice and the discipline of clear soup. Soul Dining has recently closed. Song Wat is planned for Macquarie Park in mid-2027.
Jin Guk in Macquarie Park Korean Broth Specialist Opens October 12
Lee's first public explanation of Jin Guk begins at the stockpot, with what he refuses to put into it. "Jin guk is similar to ramen, but we don't use the bones, only meat," said Jay Lee.1 Bones cloud and thicken; Lee wants a clearer soup, built from pork, beef or seafood, then served as gomtang with rice.
Jin Guk opens on Monday, October 12, with 35 seats. The address is Shop 10/101 Waterloo Road, Macquarie Park. It will open for lunch and dinner daily.
Jin Guk means Korean broth. Gomtang is the restaurant's specialty. Lee now cooks gomtang at Jin Guk after working in the fine-dining structure of Soul Dining, and the dish depends on precise timing in the kitchen. Different cuts of meat need different cooking times in the broth, and Lee has already named that early trial and error as part of the work.
Lee has made rice part of Jin Guk's cooking decisions. Jin Guk serves its broth with rice from Cheorwon, a Korean region near the demilitarised zone. The choice followed trials of rice from around the world; Lee and the team could not match the high moisture content and sweetness they found in Korean rice. In Korea, the amount of rice added to broth rests with the diner, the way some Australians take a heavy spread of Vegemite and others use a light hand. The bowl is meant to be finished at the table, with the diner deciding how much rice to add.
The Soul Dining Pedigree Behind Jin Guk's Menu
Jay Lee arrives at Jin Guk after serving as the long-time head chef at Soul Dining. Soul Dining's closing left a visible gap in Sydney 's Korean dining conversation. Lee's next move is a broth format that depends on repetition.
At Soul Dining, Lee worked inside a chef's hatted restaurant system, where the pass trains cooks to see small variations before guests do. At Jin Guk, Lee is focusing on broth, meat, rice and daily service. A cook who has spent years in a tighter dining-room rhythm brings that discipline to the ladle, the pot and the rice cooker. The bowl requires the same attention to sequencing as a longer menu.
Lee's broth is built without bones to keep the soup clear. Lee's method differs from ramen stock because the broth depends on meat. If the broth carries pork, beef or seafood, each cut must give flavor without muddling the pot. The timing of those cuts becomes the technique. In a 35-seat room, small errors repeat quickly; so do good habits.
Jin Guk also gives Lee a different service problem from the CBD. Waterloo Road sits in a suburb with office workers, students, residents and Korean food traffic close by. Lunch and dinner daily asks the broth to serve several tempos: a working lunch, an after-class bowl, a family dinner, a return visit by someone who knows exactly how much rice they want in the soup. Gomtang can carry all of that if the kitchen keeps the base steady.
Song Wat: Joe Kitsana and Darase Kraykaew Move North
Joe Kitsana, owner of Joe's Table in Darlinghurst, is making his own Macquarie Park move with Song Wat, a modern Thai restaurant planned for Mahogany Avenue near Macquarie Park Public School. Kitsana is partnering with Darase Kraykaew, the restaurateur from Haymarket's At Bangkok, giving Song Wat two named operators.
Kitsana's own bench history is unusually compact. He started Joe's Table as a one-man operation, cooking, waiting tables and handling the sommelier role in Darlinghurst. Before that room formed its audience, Kitsana worked at Sydney restaurants Longrain, Sailor's Thai and Phamish. Those restaurants place him in Sydney Thai cooking between street memory, restaurant polish and local produce.
Song Wat takes its name from the Bangkok neighbourhood of the same name, a district associated with old shopfronts, spice houses and restaurants. Kitsana has described the food direction as modern Thai with Chinese-Thai influences. Kraykaew brings the At Bangkok connection from Haymarket, while Kitsana brings the compact service discipline of Joe's Table.
The distance between Jin Guk's October 12 opening and Song Wat's mid-2027 target gives Macquarie Park a two-stage shift. Lee's broth restaurant opens on Monday, October 12. Kitsana and Kraykaew's Song Wat points to a longer build on Mahogany Avenue, near a school precinct and away from the usual inner-city circuit that diners use to map new openings.
Why Macquarie Park Is Pulling Sydney Operators North
Kenny Lee, chief operating officer at JS Hospitality, the group backing Jin Guk, has given the clearest location argument. "The Korean community in Eastwood is just a 10-minute drive away," said Kenny Lee.2 For a Korean broth restaurant, that proximity means Jin Guk can cook for people who already know the dish, people who may judge the rice as closely as the soup.
Macquarie Park also carries the daily traffic of tech offices and university life. JS Hospitality's Kenny Lee and Joe's Table owner Joe Kitsana both see the suburb as a place with a captive dining market and the potential to draw diners from a wider area. The surrounding suburbs of Ryde and Lane Cove add another ring of residents who do not always want to drive into the CBD for a meal from a named chef.
The Korean food signal has already appeared nearby. S-Mart, a Korean specialty food store, launched in Macquarie Park last month. Shoppers who know Korean ingredients, families stocking home kitchens, office workers who can turn a lunch break into a pantry stop, and cooks who notice whether the rice on the shelf matches the rice in the bowl show the underlying demand.
Jin Guk and Song Wat also reveal how suburban dining is changing in Sydney. Lee brings a broth program from a recently closed CBD fine-dining kitchen to a 35-seat room. Kitsana, who built Joe's Table from a one-man Darlinghurst operation, joins Kraykaew from At Bangkok for a modern Thai project near a public school. Lee, Kitsana and Kraykaew are choosing Macquarie Park because it already has an audience.
How to Visit, and What to Watch From the Bench
The restaurant opens Monday, October 12, from lunch, with 35 seats at Shop 10/101 Waterloo Road, Macquarie Park. It serves lunch and dinner daily.
For Song Wat, the calendar is longer. Joe Kitsana and Darase Kraykaew are aiming for a mid-2027 launch on Mahogany Avenue near Macquarie Park Public School. The partnership matters as much as the address. Kitsana's years at Joe's Table, after time at Longrain, Sailor's Thai and Phamish, meet Kraykaew's At Bangkok experience.
The next move belongs first to Lee. A 35-seat broth restaurant gives little cover to a wavering pot, and gomtang gives no easy place to hide the rice. If Jin Guk finds its rhythm on Waterloo Road, Macquarie Park will have a new station in Sydney's Korean cooking map before Song Wat arrives to test the suburb's appetite for another lineage in mid-2027.
