Grok 4.5 solved it
---
Answer: 더바른정육식당 (The Barun Jeongyuk Sikdang)
📍 서울 강남구 강남대로 482, 신논현/논현 · IG
@barun_jo
1. Plate first. The tweet photo is a classic Korean 고깃집 사인 벽 — light vertical wood, white cards in clear plastic sleeves, red stickers “open AI / Ilya Sutskever,” date 2023. 9. 16. That style + Korean date format already points at a local meat house, not a touristy Instagram spot.
2. The only public breadcrumb. A Feb 2025 CHON Facebook post by 신근영 (Shin Keun-young /
@rms1155) shares essentially the same plate: he paid for lunch, noticed the signature, and the owner said Ilya (with his Korean wife) had dined and signed. No name given — exactly why the original challenge works.
3. Date unlocks geography. 2023.9.16 lands on Prompter Day Seoul 2023 (SKT × OpenAI), prelims that weekend, finals at Dreamplus Gangnam (신논현/역삼). So search shifted from “random Korea BBQ” → 신논현 / 논현 / 역삼 정육식당 with celebrity signature walls.
4. Shortlist + wall matching. Candidates with dense 사인 벽 near Dreamplus: 더바른정육식당, 산솔 신논현, 대운목장, a few quieter 드-슐랭 정육. Cross-checked public wall photos against the hardware in the tweet (vertical wood + laminated white cards, not door-writing / yellow sticky notes / free-form paper).
5. The lock. Google Images for “더바른정육식당 사인 벽” surfaces the same wall system — same wood, same clear sleeves, same card