RFK Cuisine · Korean · New York City
Best Korean Restaurants in New York City 2026
Korean · New York City · 6 rooms ranked · Updated June 2026
Compiled by the Restaurants for Kings editorial team · Published June 20, 2026 · Updated June 20, 2026
In late 2025, Jungsik became the first Korean restaurant in the United States to win three Michelin stars, and it is not even alone at the top of New York's Korean scene. A decade ago this list would have been a guide to West 32nd Street, all barbecue and late-night stew; today the city holds a three-star room, a two-star counter rated the best in North America, and four more starred kitchens that have made New York the most decorated Korean fine-dining city outside Seoul. The grills of Koreatown still anchor the casual end. Six rooms, ranked from the three-star flagship down to the skewer counter in Hell's Kitchen.
1.Jungsik
The first Korean restaurant in America to win three stars; book for the most refined Korean tasting menu in the country.
Jungsik opened in Tribeca in 2011 and spent more than a decade pushing contemporary Korean cooking up the Michelin ladder, reaching three stars in late 2025 — the first Korean restaurant in the United States to do it. Chef-owner Jung Sik Yim and executive chef Daeik Kim run a tasting menu that reads Korean but plates like the upper tier of modern fine dining: raw striped jack with white kimchi, crisped octopus with gochujang aioli, dry-aged Arctic char, a famous sea-urchin rice. The room is dark, hushed and grown-up, the service among the best in the city. It is the definitive statement of where Korean food now sits in the American fine-dining hierarchy. Book on Resy two to four weeks ahead.
Reserve on Resy two to four weeks out; the full tasting menu with the wine pairing and the sea-urchin rice.
2.Atomix
A fourteen-seat counter rated the best restaurant in North America; book the moment the window opens for a landmark meal.
Atomix, the NoMad counter from Junghyun "JP" Park and Ellia Park, holds two Michelin stars and was named the best restaurant in North America on the World's 50 Best list. Fourteen seats face the kitchen, and the roughly ten-course menu arrives on individual cards that explain the Korean technique, ingredient or history behind each dish — an education as much as a dinner, at around 395 dollars a head. The cooking is precise and deeply researched, moving through seasonal Korean ideas with a designer's eye. It is the hardest Korean reservation in the city and, for many, the single best meal. Book on Tock about a month ahead, the instant the window drops.
Reserve on Tock when the monthly window opens; the full counter tasting with the beverage pairing.
3.Cote
The Michelin-starred Korean steakhouse that grills dry-aged Prime at your table; book for the best Korean barbecue for a group.
Cote, Simon Kim's Flatiron room, proved that Korean barbecue and a Michelin star are not a contradiction — it has held one every year since 2018. The format is a Korean steakhouse: dry-aged USDA Prime and wagyu cuts grilled at the table over smokeless burners, with banchan, stews and a serious wine list around it. The Butcher's Feast, a set run of four cuts with sides, is the easy and roughly 72-dollar way in, far below the tasting counters and built for sharing. It is the most accessible starred Korean room in New York and the clear pick for a group that wants the theatre of the grill with real cooking behind it. Book on Resy a week or two ahead.
Reserve on Resy one to two weeks out; the Butcher's Feast and a bottle from the deep red list.
4.Jua
Hoyoung Kim's live-fire Korean tasting, earned a star in two years; book for fire-driven cooking with a Jungsik pedigree.
Jua, in the Flatiron, is chef Hoyoung Kim's solo room, and it won a Michelin star within two years of opening on the strength of one idea: Korean flavor run through live fire. Kim, formerly of Jungsik, builds his tasting menu around the wood-fired grill and hearth — charred and smoked vegetables, fish and meat that carry the heat into every course — in a warm, intimate space that feels less formal than the three-star rooms. It is the choice for diners who want serious modern Korean cooking with a bit more fire and a bit less hush, at a tasting price below the marquee counters. Book on Resy one to three weeks ahead.
Reserve on Resy one to three weeks out; the tasting menu, leaning on whatever comes off the wood fire.
5.Mari
A one-star tasting built on Korean hand rolls, course by course; book for the most original Korean format in the city.
Mari, in Hell's Kitchen, took a humble idea — the ssam, the Korean wrap — and turned it into a one-Michelin-star tasting menu, sending out a sequence of hand rolls filled with everything from snow crab to braised pork belly, each built to be eaten in a bite or two. From the team behind the starred skewer counter Kochi, it shares that group's knack for taking a single Korean technique and refining it to fine-dining pitch. The room is small and the format genuinely different from anything else on this list, which is the appeal: not another grand tasting, but a focused, inventive one. Book on Resy a week or two ahead; the counter seats fill first.
Reserve on Resy one to two weeks out; the hand-roll tasting menu, eaten the moment each roll lands.
6.Kochi
Sungchul Shim's one-star skewer tasting, street food refined; book for a value-led starred meal that never feels stiff.
Kochi — the name means "skewer" — is chef Sungchul Shim's Hell's Kitchen room, where a Michelin-starred tasting menu is built almost entirely around food on a stick: marinated, grilled and torched skewers of meat, seafood and vegetable, plated as a refined progression rather than a barbecue. It draws on Korean royal-court and street traditions in equal measure, and at a tasting price well below the three-star counters it is the best-value starred Korean meal in the city. The space is intimate and unfussy, the cooking precise. It is the room for a serious Korean dinner that still feels relaxed. Book on Resy one to two weeks ahead.
Reserve on Resy one to two weeks out; the skewer tasting menu with the optional pairing.
How New York eats Korean
New York's Korean dining has two centers of gravity. The older one is Koreatown, the dense block of West 32nd Street between Fifth Avenue and Broadway, where barbecue houses, 24-hour stew rooms, fried-chicken joints, karaoke and bakeries stack into a few buildings and stay open past midnight. It is the casual heart of Korean New York, and still the answer for a late, cheap, excellent meal. The newer center is the fine-dining wave that grew out of Jungsik: a generation of chefs, many of whom trained there, who took Korean technique uptown into tasting counters and won the stars to prove it. That is the story this list tells — the Michelin-decorated rooms that now sit outside K-town in Tribeca, NoMad, Flatiron and Hell's Kitchen.
Practically, the two ends ask for different planning. The starred rooms book one to four weeks ahead on Resy or Tock, with Atomix the genuinely hard one; K-town is walk-in and runs late. The vocabulary is worth knowing: banchan (the small side dishes), galbi (marinated short rib), ssam (a wrap), jjigae (stew). For the global frame, see the best Korean restaurants worldwide guide; compare the West Coast scene in the best Korean restaurants in Los Angeles; and map the rest of the city in the New York dining guide.
Where not to book
Skip these for serious Korean in NYC
The all-you-can-eat barbecue barns on 32nd Street if you care about the meat. They are loud, cheap and fun, but the beef is low-grade and endless rather than good. For Korean barbecue with real sourcing, Cote grills dry-aged Prime in a different league, and the Butcher's Feast is not much more than a night of unlimited mediocrity.
Atomix if you want a relaxed, spontaneous dinner. It is a fourteen-seat counter with a strict, paced tasting menu booked a month out — thrilling, but not a drop-in. For a starred Korean meal you can book this week and linger over, Jua or Kochi are the easier, looser calls.
Frequently asked
What is the best Korean restaurant in New York City?
Jungsik in Tribeca is the top of the list: in late 2025 it became the first Korean restaurant in the United States to win three Michelin stars. Chef-owner Jung Sik Yim and executive chef Daeik Kim run a refined contemporary Korean tasting menu. Atomix in NoMad, with two stars and a top placing on the World's 50 Best list, is its closest rival. New York is now the most decorated Korean fine-dining city outside Seoul.
How expensive is Korean fine dining in NYC?
The tasting-menu rooms are a serious outlay: Atomix runs around 395 dollars a head before wine, Jungsik is in a similar three-star band, and Jua, Mari and Kochi sit roughly between 165 and 295 dollars for their tasting menus. Cote is the flexible option, a Korean steakhouse where the Butcher's Feast lands around 72 dollars per person for the barbecue, far less than the counters but still a Michelin-starred meal.
Is Cote a real Korean barbecue restaurant?
Yes, and a Michelin-starred one. Cote, in the Flatiron district, is Simon Kim's Korean steakhouse, which has held a Michelin star every year since 2018 by treating Korean barbecue with steakhouse seriousness: dry-aged USDA Prime and wagyu cuts grilled at the table, plus banchan and stews. The Butcher's Feast set menu is the easy way in. It is the most accessible starred Korean room in the city and the best one for a group.
How hard is it to book Atomix in New York?
Hard. Atomix seats only fourteen at its counter and releases reservations on Tock about a month ahead, in a window that sells out within minutes for prime evenings. Set a reminder for the release time and have a backup date. Jungsik and the other tasting rooms book one to four weeks out and are easier; Cote takes Resy reservations and holds back some walk-in bar seating for its barbecue.
Where is Koreatown in New York City?
Koreatown runs along West 32nd Street between Fifth Avenue and Broadway in Midtown, a dense block of barbecue houses, late-night spots, karaoke and bakeries. It is the casual heart of Korean New York and stays open late. The Michelin-starred rooms on this list sit outside it, though: Jungsik in Tribeca, Atomix and Jua in NoMad and Flatiron, Cote in Flatiron, Kochi and Mari in Hell's Kitchen. Together they are the fine-dining counterpart to K-town's grills.
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Browse the full New York dining guide, place these rooms against the world in the best Korean restaurants worldwide, compare New York's best tasting menus, plan a meal to impress clients in Tribeca, book a counter for a birthday, or open the full RFK cuisine index.
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