A restaurateur with several recent hits under his belt has teamed up with a chef with SF fine dining cred to open a new Oakland restaurant focused on Korean comfort food and home-style cooking.

The restaurant will be called Ajae, and restaurateur Min Park — of SF's Itria and Menlo Park's acclaimed Yeobo, Darling — and chef Brian Shin are aiming for a late 2026 opening at an undisclosed address on Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, as the Chronicle reports.

Shin is an alum of Benu and the former In Situ at SFMOMA, both led by Executive Chef Corey Lee. And as the Chronicle notes, he'll be following in the path of other Benu alums James Yeun Leong Parry, who opened the acclaimed Happy Crane last year, and Alan Hsu, who along with partner Sarah Cooper opened Sun Moon Studio in West Oakland, earning a Michelin star and a rave from the Chronicle that named it the best new restaurant of the year in 2024.

Ajae will center its menu on Korean comfort dishes like the rice soup called gukbap, and other things familiar to Korean restaurant menus, but Park tells the Chronicle, with "Brian’s special skill set they get taken to the next level."

Shin has also worked at Chicago’s Alinea, which has three Michelin stars, and he's done comfort food at The Snug in Pacific Heights, but it sounds like Ajae will be more ambitious than that, if not less casual.

Piedmont Avenue has long had a strong dining scene, with the classic spot BayWolf giving way to The Wolf in the last decade, and chef James Syhabout's Commis being the only Michelin-starred restaurant in all of Oakland until Sun Moon Studio came along.

Recent vacancies on the avenue include the former Pomella space at 3770 Piedmont, and breakfast spot The Crepe Pan (4184 Piedmont), which just closed earlier this year.

Stay tuned for more details as we know them.