First Look: At Bandak, a Former Vue De Monde Chef Makes Korean Fried Chicken

Bandak Chicken chef and co-owner Jayden Park spent years in the kitchens of high-end restaurants, including Hot-Listed Vue de Monde. But rather than open a fine diner of his own, Park, with co-owner and former radiographer Kathy Kim, is betting big on one thing – really good fried chicken.

On a quiet residential stretch in West Melbourne, they’ve opened Bandak Chicken, a 10-seat shop with a focus on takeaway. Park says the goal is to strip things back. “We wanted the focus to be 100 per cent on the chicken,” he says. “Just like in Korea, the best chicken shops do one thing and they do it right.”

That means a short, sharp menu centred around two options: bone-in or boneless chicken. The bone-in is served halved or whole, and broken into neat pieces including full wings and drumsticks. The boneless is made with chicken thigh and served in roughly 350-gram or 700-gram portions. Both are brined for 24 hours and, while many Korean fried chicken recipes involve double frying, only fried once. The team says this keeps the batter light, thin and shatteringly crisp.

The Bandak original is well-seasoned, but served without a sauce or glaze. Other (messier) options include sweet and spicy, honey soy and garlic, lemon pepper, and smoky hot. The latter is a barbeque-inspired number and the spiciest on the list. Each order comes with cubed pickled radish – a fried-chicken essential in Korea – with extra dipping sauces including ranch and buldak mayonnaise (the mayonnaise is inspired by both a popular brand of hot sauce, and buldak, a spicy street dish commonly translated as “fire chicken”).

“We season heavily, and all our sauces are made in-house,” Kim tells Broadsheet. “A lot of garlic, like in Korean home cooking: very fragrant, very punchy.” Like many Korean fried chicken shops, Kim and Park supply diners with disposable gloves.

On the side, there’s a small but solid snack offering: chilli cheese waffle fries tossed in a vibrant seasoning powder, and cheddar cheese corn ribs. The drinks list is currently non-alcoholic, with Korean favourites like Milkis, Bong Bong grape juice, and Korean pear juice, but a liquor licence is on the way, with plans to stock Korean beers and soju.

Even the packaging has been carefully considered. “We import it from Korea. The boxes have little vents that let the steam out so the chicken stays crispy,” says Kim. “That’s important to us.”

Currently, Bandak is open at night, but a lunch service is in the works. For now, it’s already drawing fans from the neighbourhood and beyond, a testament to Park and Kim’s dedication to nailing a single dish.

Bandak Chicken
203 Rosslyn Street, West Melbourne
0493382042

Hours:
Wed to Mon 4pm–9pm
@bandak.melbourne
bandak-chicken.square.site