The selection of Korean restaurants in Montreal has exploded in recent years, and now ranges anywhere from various takes on Korean BBQ to cheap spots to get buckets of fried chicken and plates of street food to inventive fine dining options. You can of course find great Korean cuisine in the Shaughnessy Village near Concordia downtown, but there are excellent Korean food options from the West Island to Mile End and anywhere else you go.
Keep track of them — or dive in for the first time ever — with this guide to the best of them.
9 Tail Fox
Where: 3401, rue Notre-Dame O.
Why You Need To Go: This Saint-Henri restaurant headed by chefs Jongwook Lee and WonGoo Joun stands out because of how it breaks the mold of most Korean restaurants in the city. Serving a seasonal tapas-style menu, the chefs apply fine dining techniques to their cuisine’s ingredients to create wholly new plates you won’t find anywhere else. You have to try it at least once if you think you love Korean food.
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Ganadara
Where: Multiple locations
Why You Need To Go: Ganadara has two locations — downtown or in Verdun — and you’ll be treated to different vibes depending on which you choose, with a more bar-forward experience at the former with tteokbokki poutines and Korean BBQ, and a focused dining spot with noodle bowls and plates of fried rice at the latter. Whichever one you go to, it’s a fan favourite among Montrealers for a reason, and its owners are confident they’ll be expanding like crazy in coming years.
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Chez Bong
Where: Multiple locations
Why You Need To Go: Whether you go to their downtown location or the sub basement spot in Chinatown, you’ll be treated to fantastic classics from Korean cuisine. Their mandu (dumplings) and jigae (stew) are particularly good, but you can’t go wrong with anything here thanks to owner Madame Bong, who runs the show and crafts the recipes on offer. She means business — she and her husband opened the first Korean restaurant in Montreal in 1989.
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Omma
Where: 51, rue Ontario O.
Why You Need To Go: Eating here is like dining in the home kitchen of a Korean mom, and it’s awesome. Not only does its chef My-kium Kim have amazing recipes for dishes like dumplings, fried pajun pancake with veggies and kimchi, curries and fresh salads, but the atmosphere here is bright and inviting.
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Kui
Where: 3865, rue Wellington, Verdun
Why You Need To Go: This BYOB, all-you-can-eat restaurant in Verdun is regularly packed with people in the neighbourhood for a few reasons (apart from the obvious). The ingredients you have to cook up on their tabletop grills are numerous, the additional dishes you can get like noodles and fried rice are equally delicious, and the vibes here are always energetic.
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Mon Ami
Where: Multiple locations
Why You Need To Go: It’s one of — if not the most — prolific Korean restaurant chains in Montreal for a reason. Many of its locations have different menus and approaches ranging from barbecue spots to à la carte places that explore a lot of what its cuisine has to offer, but any one of their addresses are going to give you a great baseline for how good a Korean restaurant can be in Montreal.
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Le Petit Seoul
5245, boul. Saint-Laurent
Why You Need To Go: An affordable spot in the Mile End, Le Petit Seoul and its owners Jonathan Lee, Kang Joong Lee, and chefs Hey Jung Sim and Young Mi Kwon have made a name for themselves thanks to the high-quality food they’re serving up. There’s a fair amount of Montreal-inspired dishes to go with their strictly Korean options, like the cheekily-named ‘Seoul poutine’ with kimchi and pork on rice (no fries, cheese or gravy), or Korean-style tartares.
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Comon
Where: Multiple locations
Why You Need To Go: Comon started with one standout spot for Korean fried chicken in LaSalle, and is (we hope) slowly spreading across Montreal with another outpost in Monkland Village. Both locations offer a solid menu with other Korean specialities and classics as well like bulgogi bibimbap and breaded and fried tonkatsu pork. The menus are well-made and inexpensive, and they’ve got delivery too if you don’t feel like getting out of the house to try it.
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La Belle Corée
Where: 101, av. Fairmount O.
Why You Need To Go: This Mile-End restaurant from chef and owner Brian Lee serves up a lot of savory authentic cuisine with family-style plates of bibimbap, hot cast iron plates of bulgogi and chicken, and a few Montreal-influenced dishes like kimchi poutine. If you’re all about ambiance when you eat, then this place is a must, as a lot of care has been taken to give this place a great lived-in and culturally-inspired feel.
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Hwang Kum
Where: 5908, rue Sherbrooke O.
Why You Need To Go: This Korean institution in NDG from Jun Beom Lim and Chef Young Ui Hong is small but mighty. That’s because, within this 30-seat spot, the Korean classics and specialties they make ranging from kalbi beef ribs and haemul pajeon seafood pancakes to bibimbap and heaping plates of kimchi are going to be some of the most delicious you can find in the city.
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La Maison de Seoul
Where: 470, av. Lafleur, LaSalle
Why You Need To Go: A BYOB spot located in LaSalle, La Maison De Seoul excels at dishes like Korean fried chicken and street food items like Korean pogos, seafood pancakes, and dumplings. They’ve got some bigger dishes to dig into as well, like sizzling hot stone bowls of inventive bibimbap — such as one variety made with beef, kimchi and mozzarella.
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Bol Orange
Where: 983, boul. Decarie, Saint-Laurent
Why You Need To Go: This restaurant is one of a select few that makes Ville Saint-Laurent a destination borough for Korean food thanks to its low prices and range of specialties. You need to try the japchae (glass noodle fried with vegetables and meat), galbi (grilled short ribs), and deopbap, a rice dish covered in a range of toppings that’s similar to bibimbap. There are a few Japanese options on the menu, too.
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Daldongnae
Where: Multiple locations
Why You Need To Go: This chain of Korean BBQ restaurants originally from Toronto with addresses concentrated around the downtown core is great for getting a taste of proper Korean cuisine. It’s a lot of pork and beef with vegetarian options here, plus fancier items like black tiger shrimp and wagyu. This spot isn't an all-you-can-eat option or BYOB place like others in town, but it does deliver a high level of quality.
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K-Bros
Where: 4057, boul. Saint-Jean #101, Dollard-Des Ormeaux
Why You Need To Go: Blink and you might miss this place in the West Island where they’re cooking up all kinds of specialties, from bibimbap and fried chicken to savory pancakes, noodle dishes, and stews.If you have trouble deciding what to get, just order one of their combo boxes that combine multiple options and don’t cost more than $20. Special shout-out goes to their donkatsu (breaded and fried pork) and tteokkochi (skewers of deep-fried rice cakes in spicy sauce).
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Rue Des Bistros (Restaurant Mukja)
Where: 6139, rue Sherbrooke O.
Why You Need To Go: If you’ve ever wanted to take a trip to Seoul's oldest food market Namdemun but don’t have a couple thousand to drop on plane tickets, this is where you want to go. The dishes you get from this lunch counter-style restaurant features all kinds of plates that hawkers and street vendors sell, like corndogs and fried chicken, jajangmyeon (black bean noodle made with black bean paste and stir-fried vegetables and pork, and lots of soups and stews. There’s so much here that no two visits can be the same.
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Luna
Where: 917, rue Rachel E.
Why You Need To Go: If you want a Korean restaurant that offers a great introduction to the cuisine for the uninitiated and a solid place for those that know it already, this is the spot. Luna’s menus are divided into half and full tasting menus that give you a good overview of what they have to offer for a great price, but there are lots of à la carte options to pick from too. Oh, and it’s BYOB with a minimum spend of $27.
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SSAM
Where: 756, rue Bélanger
Why You Need To Go: Named after the traditional Korean dish where marinated and grilled pork comes wrapped in lettuce and is dressed in ssamjang sauce, dishes here cover all of the classics. Korean fried chicken, bibimbap, jjigae (kimchi stew)—it’s all here, and there’s a bunch of Korean liquor and soju available to wash it all down. It’s all exceptionally flavorful.
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Les Crazy Chickens
Where: 3532, rue Notre-Dame O.
Why You Need To Go: If Korean fried chicken is your one and only thought when you think of Korean restaurants in Montreal, few specialize in it as well as this small restaurant in Saint-Henri. Served in sandwiches and bao buns, crispy and plain with a side of fries, or as saucy huge buckets with multiple pieces, this is where you want to go if fried chicken is all you want; and you’re going to get a LOT of it here.
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K-BBQ
Where: 4337, boul. Saint-Jean, Dollard-des-Ormeaux
Why You Need To Go: This all-you-can-eat destination for Korean barbecue in Dollard-des-Ormeaux is the best of the west in Montreal. Great for group dining, you and as many as nine other people can collect around the table and enjoy an à la carte selection of ingredients to throw onto a sizzling plate, plus appetizers like kimbap and entrees like ramen and poke bowls.
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Courtesy of Robert Kim
Courtesy of Robert Kim