In this guide
The best Korean food in London is not really in London. New Malden has one of the largest Korean communities in Europe — around 10,000 people in the town itself and up to 20,000 across the surrounding area — and three of its streets have the grills, supermarkets and bakeries to match. It is about thirty minutes from Waterloo.
Central London has caught up in the last few years, and one Hackney kitchen was named Time Out’s best restaurant in London.
💡 The Short Version: Jin Go Gae in New Malden uses real charcoal, which is why purists go. Imone is the home cooking everyone sends you to. You Me has been there since 1988. Chick and Beers does the fried chicken. Seoul Bakery in Bloomsbury is the cheap central one, and Mukbap is London’s first fully vegan Korean kitchen.
📊 The evidence behind this guide. 9 sources carrying 118 citations across 74 named restaurants. 19 restaurants are named by two or more independent sources; 2 hold a Michelin star. Built on: the Michelin Guide; The Infatuation, Secret London and DesignMyNight; New Malden local guides. Evidence rebuilt 14 September 2026 · How we rank →
Where they are
Best Korean restaurants in London map
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| If you are near… | Where to eat |
|---|---|
| New Malden | Jin Go Gae, Imone, You Me, Cah Chi, Seoul Matjib, Chick and Beers, Tongdak |
| Bloomsbury | Seoul Bakery |
| Shoreditch | Mukbap |
| Finsbury Park | Dotori |
| Soho & Chinatown | Olle, Chung’dam, Pochawa Grill |
| Hackney | Miga |
| Canary Wharf | Sagye |
Price guide: ££ £15–£35 · £££ £40–£70 · ££££ £90+.
New Malden
Thirty minutes from Waterloo, and the reason to make the trip.
The restaurants run along three streets rather than one: New Malden High Street, Burlington Road and Kingston Road.
Burlington Road, New Malden. Photo: Ewan-M, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Jin Go Gae, Burlington Road
£££ · charcoal, not gas · Cited by 4 sources
Real charcoal rather than gas, which is the purist’s choice in a town full of Korean grills — the smoke gets into the meat, the fat renders differently, and everyone in New Malden can taste which shops have made the switch and which have not.
Table barbecue is the format: galbi — marinated short rib — and pork belly grilled in front of you, with the full banchan spread of kimchi, pickles and namul arriving unasked and refilled free. The stews behind the grill are worth ordering as well as it.
£££, book a few days ahead for a weekend table. Named by four independent sources, more than either of London’s Michelin-starred Korean restaurants.
The grill at Jin Go Gae.
Imone, New Malden High Street
££ · family-run · Cited by 4 sources
Bulgogi and banchan at Imone.
A small family-run room on New Malden high street, and the one locals send you to — strong on seafood, and with halal chicken options that most Korean kitchens do not offer.
Seafood is what distinguishes it: haemul pajeon, the seafood and spring onion pancake, cooked crisp at the edges, and stews built on squid and prawn rather than pork. The banchan spread is generous and changes with what has been made that day.
££, book a few days ahead — it is small and it fills with people who live nearby rather than with visitors.
Note that Imone BBQ next door is a separate, newer venue — a dedicated grill room. Easy to book the wrong one.
You Me, Burlington Road
££ · trading since 1988
One of the plainer New Malden rooms, and the sort of place that exists for the Korean community rather than for a guide — no styling, no English-first menu, and a following built entirely on word of mouth.
Grilled meats at the table and a long list of jjigae — the bubbling stews that arrive still boiling — with banchan refilled without asking. Order the stews rather than the barbecue if you want to know why people come.
Walk-in, cheap. Burlington Road, a few minutes from New Malden station, and busiest at weekends when the whole street is.
Cah Chi, Kingston Road
££ · long-standing local favourite · Cited by 2 sources
Table grill at Cah Chi.
One of the oldest Korean restaurants in New Malden, family-run and considerably plainer than the newer grills — the room people go to for the stews.
Sundubu jjigae — soft tofu stew, arriving at the table still boiling — and jeon, the savoury pancakes, are the orders. The yukhoe beef tartare is still on the menu, which not every New Malden kitchen bothers with. Barbecue exists and is not the point.
Walk-in and cheap. A short bus or walk from New Malden station. The one to pick for Korean home cooking rather than a table grill.
Seoul Matjib, Burlington Road
££ · drinking food · Cited by 2 sources
Tteokbokki with exactly the right chew, served without ceremony — the New Malden room people go to when they want feeding rather than impressing.
Tteokbokki is the signature: cylindrical rice cakes in a sweet-hot gochujang sauce, and the whole dish turns on the texture of the cake — too soft and it is porridge, too firm and it is rubber. This kitchen gets it right. Fried snacks and stews alongside.
££, walk-in, closed Monday. Small, plain and quick; it is a snack shop as much as a restaurant.
Chick and Beers, Burlington Road
£ · Korean fried chicken · Cited by 4 sources
Korean fried chicken, Chick and Beers.
Family-owned, double-fried, and widely held to be the best Korean fried chicken in London — in the middle of New Malden’s Koreatown rather than in town, which is why it has not been toned down.
Double-frying is the technique and the point: the chicken is fried, rested, then fried again, which drives out the moisture between skin and meat and leaves a shell that stays crisp under sauce. Order it plain and in the yangnyeom sweet-hot glaze to compare the two.
££, walk-in, closed Monday. Named by four independent sources. Beer is the accompaniment the name promises and the correct one.
Tongdak, Kingston Road
£ · fried chicken · Cited by 1 source
A New Malden chicken specialist that trades almost entirely on the Korean community’s own recommendation rather than on guides — which is a stronger signal than a listing.
Korean fried chicken done the same double-fried way as its neighbours, in plain, soy-garlic and yangnyeom versions, plus the pickled radish that always comes with it and cuts the fat. A takeaway counter more than a dining room.
££, walk-in. Order ahead by phone at peak; the frying takes as long as it takes and they will not rush it.
Central
Olle, Soho
£££ · 3 min from Leicester Square · Cited by 3 sources
Marbled beef at Olle.
Table grills in the middle of Soho, so the New Malden format without the forty-minute train — which is the entire argument for it and a reasonable one.
Charcoal barbecue at the table: marinated galbi, pork belly and brisket cooked in front of you, with banchan and lettuce leaves to wrap it in. The kitchen also runs stews and bibimbap for anyone not grilling.
£££, book a few days ahead, three minutes from Leicester Square. The extraction is better than most central Korean rooms, so you leave smelling of less than you would in New Malden.
Pochawa Grill, Chinatown
£££ · 3 min from Piccadilly Circus · Cited by 2 sources
Pochawa Grill, Chinatown.
A neon-pink Korean pub format dropped into Chinatown — a pojangmacha, the street-tent drinking spot, rebuilt indoors. You grill at the table and the room is built for a night rather than a meal.
Barbecue at the table, and the drinking food that goes with it: fried chicken, tteokbokki and stews, eaten alongside soju and beer. Loud, bright, and busy until late.
£££, book a few days ahead at weekends. Come as a group and expect to stay; two people eating quietly are in the wrong room.
Chung’dam, Soho
££££ · 2 min from Leicester Square · Cited by 2 sources
Named for Seoul’s Cheongdam-dong — the district that is to Seoul what Mayfair is to London — and priced accordingly. The most polished Korean room in central London.
The thing to order is the pyeonbaek steam box: a three-tiered wooden steamer of prawns, mussels and brisket cooked over hot stones and brought to the table sealed, then opened in front of you. Table barbecue and a proper wine and soju list behind it.
££££, closed Sunday, and it books weeks ahead. The occasion Korean restaurant rather than the everyday one.
Elsewhere
Miga, Hackney
£££ · 4 min from Cambridge Heath · Cited by 2 sources
A family-run kitchen that moved from New Malden to Hackney in 2024 and was promptly named Time Out’s best restaurant in London — the clearest sign that Korean cooking in this city has stopped being a suburban speciality.
The dish everyone writes about is the yukhwe beef tartare with crisp Asian pear — raw beef, sesame and egg yolk, with the sweet-sharp pear cutting through it. Behind it the family’s New Malden repertoire: stews, pancakes and banchan made at full strength rather than scaled down for a Hackney audience.
£££, closed Monday, and it books months ahead. Small room; book the moment you decide.
Sagye, Canary Wharf
£££ · 13 min from Mudchute
Korean cooking on the Isle of Dogs rather than in the Wharf itself — a mile south of the office towers and all the better for it, with prices to match the distance.
Kimchi jjigae is the order, and it is served for a big table: portioned out between bowls rather than served individually, which is how it is eaten at home. Grills and banchan around it.
£££, book a few days ahead. Worth the walk from Canary Wharf; nothing in the estate itself comes close.
Seoul Bakery, Bloomsbury
£ · 14 Great Russell Street · cash-friendly · Cited by 2 sources
Tiny, graffiti-covered, plastered in K-pop memorabilia, and the cheapest proper Korean food in central London. Kimchi fried rice and seafood pancake, family-run for about nineteen years, with a cult student following from the university buildings around it.
It moved here from St Giles High Street when Crossrail demolished the old Koreatown.
Dolsot bibimbap. Photo: Andy Li, CC0.
Mukbap, Shoreditch
££ · 91 Worship Street · walk-in only · Cited by 2 sources
Entirely vegan Korean cooking — a category that barely exists in London — served with the warmth of a family kitchen rather than the earnestness the format usually attracts.
The Korean repertoire rebuilt without meat or fish sauce: kimchi made without shrimp paste, jjigae stews, japchae glass noodles and bibimbap, plus mock-meat versions of the barbecue dishes. Nothing tastes like a substitution, which is the whole test.
££, closed Monday, book a few days ahead. Shoreditch, and the only place in this guide a vegan can order across the entire menu.
Dotori, Finsbury Park
£ · 3 Stroud Green Road · cash only · walk-in only · Cited by 2 sources
A tiny Finsbury Park room serving Korean and Japanese food side by side, which sounds like hedging and works because the kitchen does both well.
On the Korean side: bibimbap in a hot stone bowl, japchae, and kimchi jjigae. On the Japanese: katsu, udon and donburi. The stone-bowl bibimbap is the order — the rice crisps against the bowl while you eat it.
££, and tiny — the queue outside is permanent. No bookings for small tables; go early or late, and expect to wait at any hour in between.
Assa, Soho
££ · 23 Romilly Street · Cited by 2 sources
The budae jjigae — army stew — is the order, and it is among the best in London, in a room that spends nothing on looking the part.
Budae jjigae dates from after the Korean War: it was built out of American army surplus, and still contains spam, hot dogs, instant noodles and processed cheese in a gochujang broth. It should not work and it is one of the great comfort dishes. Grills and stews alongside.
££, walk-in. St Giles rather than Soho proper, plain inside, and cheap. Order the army stew and share it.
Best value
Korean barbecue is not cheap. Almost everything else on a Korean menu is.
The cheapest good meals
- Seoul Bakery, Bloomsbury — the cheapest proper Korean food in central London, in a room the size of a corridor.
- Dotori, Finsbury Park — cash only, walk-in only, and the reason there is always a queue.
- Chick and Beers or Tongdak, New Malden — fried chicken feeds two for the price of one barbecue cover. Korean fried chicken is a scene in its own right in London, and it sits inside a bigger one: our fried chicken guide sets the Korean double-fry against the Taiwanese counter in Chinatown that more sources name than anything else.
- Stews and rice dishes — kimchi jjigae, sundubu and bibimbap run roughly £12–£16 almost everywhere, including at the barbecue restaurants. Order those and the same room becomes affordable.
Supermarkets and food halls
- The New Malden Korean supermarkets are the real bargain. H Mart and the smaller independents along the High Street sell excellent prepared banchan, kimbap and marinated meat to take away, at a fraction of restaurant prices — which is why locals shop there rather than eat out.
- Seven Dials Market and Arcade Food Hall in central London both carry Korean counters if you want a single dish without committing to a full table.
General rules
- New Malden is cheaper than central across the board, for better food. The train fare is less than the price difference.
- Lunch sets at the central restaurants are materially cheaper than dinner.
What to know
- Barbecue is £30–£45 a head with drinks. The stews are half that.
- Charcoal beats gas and only a handful of London grills still use it.
- Banchan are free and refillable — the small side dishes that arrive unasked. Ask for more of the ones you like.
- Soju is stronger than it tastes and is usually ordered by the bottle for the table.
- New Malden is Zone 4, about 30 minutes from Waterloo, and worth the journey if you are serious about this food.
Continue planning your London trip
- 🔀 The Best Fusion Restaurants in London — Sollip, Cálong and the other kitchens cooking Korean with a second cuisine
- 🎤 The Best Karaoke in London — Jihwaja’s noraebang rooms in Vauxhall and the other KTV rooms
- 🥟 Best Chinese and East Asian Restaurants
- 🇯🇵 Best Japanese Restaurants in London
- 🌶️ Best Thai Restaurants in London
- 💷 Cheap Eats in London
- 🍜 Soho Area Guide
- 🎨 Hackney Area Guide
Common questions
Why is New Malden known for Korean food?
Around 10,000 Korean residents live in New Malden itself, with up to 20,000 across the surrounding area — one of the largest Korean communities in Europe. The restaurants run along three streets: New Malden High Street, Burlington Road and Kingston Road. It is about thirty minutes by train from Waterloo and worth the journey.
What is the best Korean restaurant in London?
Miga in Hackney was named Time Out's best restaurant in London — a family kitchen that moved from New Malden in 2024. In New Malden itself, Jin Go Gae uses real charcoal rather than gas, which is why purists go there.
Where can I do Korean barbecue in central London?
Olle in Soho has table grills in the middle of the West End — the New Malden format without the train. Pochawa Grill in Chinatown is a neon-pink Korean pub where you grill at the table.
What is the difference between charcoal and gas Korean barbecue?
Charcoal gives a smokier result and is what traditional grills use. Most London restaurants use gas because it is easier to manage indoors. Jin Go Gae in New Malden is the notable charcoal holdout.
Is Korean food in London expensive?
Barbecue runs £30–£45 a head, which is not cheap. Stews and rice dishes are far less — kimchi jjigae or bibimbap is usually £12–£16, and New Malden is cheaper than central London across the board.
