Epsom, Korean Restaurant Guide

2022 Review: This “lovely little Japanese restaurant with a very decent range” is a “very welcome option in Richmond”. Run by a Korean family, it has provided “sterling service” for 17 years.

2023 Review: This Soho canteen is “one of the better Korean restaurants in town”, serving “authentic” Korean fast food headed by the dish it takes its name from – hot rice with savoury toppings that you stir before eating. There’s also a take-away option in the City.

2022 Review: “A good local Korean, with all the usual suspects present and correct on the menu”. An unassuming place, not far from Goldsmiths.

“Magical Korean/French food delivered with precision and style that blows your mind with its brilliant combinations of flavours” continues to win acclaim for Woongchul Park & Bomee Ki’s “very likeable” passion project near The Shard (which was hailed as Top Newcomer of the Year by Harden’s after it opened in 2020). The cuisine is “reasonably unique for London with its fusion of European and Korean traditions” and the resulting dishes are a “delicate” and sophisticated combination of the two, with pastry (prepared by Bomee) a particular strength. Opinions on the room differ: to fans “beautifully decorated in quite a subtle style”, to others “comfortable if plain”.

2022 Review: “Top Korean street/junk food”, say fans of Linda Lee’s K-pop-styled pit stops, known for their funky fried chicken and other luridly flavoured bites. In the second half of 2021, she closed her Covent Garden branch, leaving just Shoreditch and St Pauls open, but north London and Nine Elms branches are coming soon apparently.

This family-run restaurant in the Korean expat enclave of New Malden is a great place to sample the cuisine, with “tasty, varied dishes” including pajoen (green onion pancake) and mandu (dumplings), served by “charming staff who are happy to educate you”. “The wine is also relatively inexpensive for London”.

2024 Review: This “great local Korean” close to Notting Hill Gate tube station offers a “good variety of dishes” – including Japanese sushi and “super lunchtime bento boxes”. “It can get very busy, so booking is advised”.

2024 Review: On the Soho-fringe site of the much-lamented YMing (RIP), this April 2023 newcomer is a Korean BBQ bringing the pyeonbaek steam box to London – a three-tiered box made from hinoki wood, a type of cypress. It’s named after Cheongdam-dong, an affluent – and foodie – district of Gangnam in Seoul. It opened too late to inspire survey feedback – reports please!

The “convenient location” is a major boon for City slickers at this glossy yearling which occupies the mezzanine floor of the majestic Royal Exchange: London’s original trading centre which sits across from the Bank of England and provides an elegant and central (slightly institutional) backdrop for a meal. Open for a year now, it was the first project for former D&D London CEO, Des Gunewardena and his new D3 Collective. Feedback is surprisingly thin on its sushi, K-BBQ and other Korean fare, but nothing but positives to-date.