A Syrian Korean Restaurant Expands With a Neighborhood Grocery

When Syko, a Windsor Terrace takeout counter opened in 2022, it became likely the only Syrian Korean restaurant in the city. The menu is mostly not fusion, but Syrian and Korean food side-by-side, with dishes like bulgogi and shawarma sandwiches. It’s a byproduct of a merging of families, with the restaurant making its mark as one of South Brooklyn’s most memorable businesses.

This week, Syko — a portmanteau of Syrian and Korean — has expanded around the corner with Dukan Syko (the former the Arabic word for neighborhood shop), a grocery and general store that spotlights many of the banchan and mezze that their restaurant has come to be known for — allowing customers to take home a taste in their own family kitchens.

The location of the market — 214A Prospect Park West, near 16th Street — is personal to co-owner James Kim. Up until earlier this winter, it was J&H Farm, his family’s grocery store he grew up working in, where his mother, Sandra Kim, became known locally for her homemade kimchi until she retired. When Sandra Kim moved to New York by way of Korea, she worked with James Kim’s aunt, who ran Atlantic Fruit and Vegetable, in Cobble Hill, on a strip of Atlantic Avenue with Middle Eastern markets — making Kim’s own endeavors full-circle: Think of Dukan Syko sort of like a mom-and-pop version of H Mart meets Sahadi’s.

Emma Orlow/Eater NY

Emma Orlow/Eater NY

As at Syko, which he opened with his wife, Rosette Khoury Kim, and Rosette’s brothers, Mazen and Michael Khoury, there is equal representation of both cultures. In the refrigerator, items like hummus and labne, nestle next to spicy squid, all made in-house. Vegan options will also be available.

His recipe for kimchi builds on what he’s learned from his mother while making it something his own, he says. “I pushed her for a while,” Kim told Edible Brooklyn in 2017 of how he got his mother to sell her own homemade kimchi in her grocery. “I used to tell her, ‘This is what the mom-and-pop shops are about, homemade food.’ You won’t see that in huge places unless they bought it from somewhere else. Our kimchi is made right here; it’s what we eat at our dinner table.” The version at Dukan Syko is “fresher,” than at the restaurant, he says, intended to continue to ferment at home.

“She already gave me some pointers, and, I’m like, ‘Mom, you’re retired... tips are always encouraged but if she starts grabbing products and moving them around I’m going to slap her hand away,” he says with a laugh.

Emma Orlow/Eater NY

There are plenty of products that aren’t Dukan Syko’s own brand: like sparkling soda Vimto, a must for the Khoury side of the family.

At the front, raw olives are imported and cured at the shop. “Exporting from Syrian directly, can be very difficult, but we did it where we could; we also looked to Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, Turkey,” says Kim’s brother-in-law.

Look up and on one shelf find bags of coffee; on another, there is mochi rice flour, and behind it, a wall of sweets. Step further through the room, at the back, they’re also making their pastries like hand pies filled with meat and za’atar, made in the oven in the back.

Putting out a line of products at the market that fuses both sides of the family’s flavors is something that might come naturally down the line. Seeing all the products line up, one comes to have an appreciation for certain similarities between the cuisines, says Kim.

The family knew the market would resonate with the neighborhood since customers had been asking where they could find ingredients from the Syko menu. For Kim, “It’s really the staples of every Middle Eastern and Asian household, all in one place in an area where it is hard to find a lot of it.”

Emma Orlow/Eater NY

Emma Orlow/Eater NY