The Dumplings Are the Opening Act

Bigsuda tells you how to use it right in the name. Suda is Korean for chatter, the long, wandering kind of conversation that happens around a table, and the restaurant describes Bigsuda as a lot of talking and a lot of food at once. That’s the assignment. Bring friends, order across the menu and stay a while.

Chef Sunny Yim and his wife, Kathy Yim, have run Oiistar across Milwaukee Avenue since 2012, built from the start on house-made noodles and pork-bone broth cooked for roughly 18 hours. They took over the Bigsuda space around 2019, then the pandemic put it on hold while they kept their first restaurant going. Yim spent part of that wait studying dumplings in Asia and working out his own versions. Bigsuda finally opened in 2024, about five years after it started. That patience shows up on the plate.

The menu skews Korean with a modern pan-Asian streak, and the dumplings are the obvious place to start. Xiaolongbao and mandoo sit side by side, Shanghai next to South Korea. Both are good. I give the edge to the mandoo, but this is a table for sharing, so order both and settle it yourself. Not many spots in Wicker Park make either, and Bigsuda handles both well.

Here’s the twist: the dumplings aren’t the most interesting thing on the menu.

The bibimmen is where I’d steer you next. If you know bibimbap, a bowl of rice under a pile of toppings and an egg, all mixed together, this is the same idea built on noodles. Everything gets tossed until each bite carries a little of all of it. The soups deserve a turn too, with hand-cut noodles in deep broth, exactly where a chef who has spent more than a decade on noodles and broth should shine.

Then there are the shareable small plates, a long list of them, with enough worth trying to justify more than one trip. Start with the galbi cargot, a playful Korean riff on escargot and the kind of dish that makes a table lean in.

Inside, the space runs dark and moody, with tables that seat more than a couple of people, which is exactly what this menu wants. Grab a few friends and a beer (there are non-alcoholic options too) and pass plates around. In spring, summer and fall, there’s outdoor seating and the whole front opens up, bringing the street in while you eat. It’s Wicker Park, so the people watching comes with the meal.

Solid fits. Come for the mandoo, stay for the bibimmen and come back for the small plates you didn’t get to. And bring people. The name is a promise, and the chatter is half the point.