The best Korean barbecue restaurants in Sydney

Gyeong Bok's barbecue menu offers both offal (a rare sighting of ox intestine) and the complete other end – Wagyu so comprehensively marbled it sizzles on the pan like butter. Before any of that arrives, you’ll see one of the best banchan offerings in Sydney, 12 different dishes all made by the restaurant's owner and occasional maître d'.

Time Out picks: All the usual cuts appear, but what sets this menu apart are the extra, less common offerings like pork jowl, ox intestines, and intercostal strips (the fatty meat between beef ribs).

This is where to go for the rowdy side of barbecue – good quality beef that doesn't cost your first born child per serve, a few less common cuts (lamb cutlets, baby octopus and tripe), cheap-as-chips canned beer and soju, and charming waiters that are eager to cook your meat for you as soon you show the slightest hesitancy or lack of ability, and an atmosphere that’s somewhere between midnight at a house party and your work’s Christmas lunch. The rest of the menu is tiny – it’s basically a seafood pancake and/or a pot of steamed egg to the side; and a cold noodle soup or a fermented bean paste stew to fill those extra bits of stomach space.

Time Out picks: Yang San set.

If you're a meat lover who can't choose between all of the cuts, at Butchers Buffet you don't have to. In addition to its Blacktown, Cabramatta, Eastwood and Strathfield joints, this Korean barbecue buffet has become a Chinatown mainstay. To keep up with demand, the restaurant packed up and moved 30 seconds down the road for a bigger venue with 60 barbecue stations, which seats 200 people. For 90 minutes, you’ll be like a kid in a candy store. Except instead of rows of sweets, think colourful piled-high bowls of Korean salads, trays of stacked fried food that keeps on getting replenished, and bowls upon bowls of fresh meat ready for DIY grilling.

Time Out picks: The almost-paper-thin slices of bulgogi to chunks of soy-marinated scotch fillet steak and spicy pork belly.

A glossy menu with styled pictures of marbled beef and glistening pork-belly slabs. Pastiche Korean interiors featuring mock temple awnings and custom-built barbecue tables. Overly professional service. And a banchan service that includes a hunk of chili-marinated crab (eat it raw, chuck it on the grill, whatever). No doubt about it, Bornga is the fanciest Korean BBQ in Sydney. Thank Jong Won Paik, a Korean celebrity chef with a number of franchise restaurants including this one, the first Australian opening of an international chain on a mission to make Korean food accessible to foreigners. 

Time Out picks: Jong Won Paik's signature dish is woo samgyeop, paper-thin sliced beef brisket grilled at the table (medium is the usual for this cut) and eaten in a lettuce wrap with ssamjang (a thick, pungent chili and bean paste) and maybe some raw garlic. That’s the go-to order.

Maroo is famous for barbecue and Korean rice paper rolls. A quick run down on each. The barbecue menu is small and best approached via galbi and the combo – ox tongue, thinly sliced skirt steak, soy-marinated pork neck, mussels and a small octopus. Korean rice paper are a Korean-Australian invention that’s adapted Vietnamese DIY rice paper rolls with different ingredients and Korean sauces and they’re a good foil to a full plate of chargrilled meats. Either way your table will be so full of house-made banchan, you’ll need a waiter’s tray to hold it all.

Time Out picks: Korean rice paper rolls.

The second celebrity Korean chain to be represented on this list comes courtesy of comedian Kang Ho Dong. The meat here is no joke, though: they do a bit of their own butchery, and some of the beef comes from Australia’s Jack‘s Creek and other premium Wagyu farms. Unlike the other barbecue joints on this list, neither 678 branch has a scroll-length menu with every category of Korean cuisine represented. They’re confident enough in their barbecue menu they don’t need hot pots and fried chicken. Here it’s just beef with an 8+ marble score, a small but high quality banchan offering, maybe some cold noodles on the side, and a few cans of Cass.

Time Out picks: The Wagyu rib-eye fillet.

Fiery Korean barbecue spot Kogi delivers an authentic hands-on cooking experience, with each of the table kitted out with hot charcoal grills and rose gold exhausts. The searing hot charcoals imbue the meat (which include more than 15 premium cuts of Wagyu beef and pork) with a smokier flavour than a gas flame does. The chefs are also doing extensive banchan (the free sides you get to complement your barbecued meats).

Time Out picks: The bibimbap bowls.

The small restaurant is so popular with the local Korean community, it’s packed almost every night. They don’t care about the austere fit-out, they come for the ribs: marinated in garlic, soy, ginger and sesame; grilled by you or for you at your table (they’ll help if they see you struggling); and sold for a few dollars less than most other restaurants on this list. There’s not much else on the short menu but we’d encourage an equal parts gooey and crunchy leek pancake, and a bowl of cold buckwheat noodles to finish.

Time Out picks: Leek pancakes.

Two options. Head to the Campsie branch if you want old-school mat-seating and a homely vibe. If you want beats, booze, the permanent aroma of smoking meats stuck to your clothes and friendly crowds of international students, try the Strathfield branch. At both you’ll find some of the most tender, marbled beef in Sydney; a longer-menu of pork cuts (intestines, thick-cut jowl and loin making appearances), the occasional free helping of raw crab doused in chili paste and same, busy crowds.

Time Out picks: The marinated beef or pork ribs.

Kimchi, soju and Korean barbecue are some of the very best things about South Korea’s pulsating capital, Seoul (alongside K-beauty, its incredible food markets and karaoke). And you can get all that at 789 Korean BBQ, now open in Darling Square. The Korean barbecue joint is by the same team behind 678 Korean BBQ in Haymarket and Eastwood, so you know they are experts in firing up the grill. 789 Korean BBQ also caters well to vegos, and they also have a top-tier seafood pancake. The good news? It all pairs well with soju.

Time Out picks: Chilli-marinated pork belly.

Open the menu to the barbecue platter with four different cuts of beef, includng a Wagyu scotch fillet, plus pork suasages. That’s a good indicator of what kind of restaurant this is. While most Korean restaurants are looking to harness the loud, beer-fuelled side of barbecue, Danjee is aspiring to sell you wine, marble scores, marinated seafood for your grill, more professional table service and cheap banchan refills. Check out their sister restaurant, Madang for a slightly lo-fi experience that costs you fewer dollars and more decibels.

Time Out picks: There are specials on throughout the week – go for that.

This Croydon favourite brings together the best of all the culinary worlds; all-you-can-eat, buffet, and barbeque. That's right, pull up a red chair, pay your fee and then head to the two chilled buffets absolutely brimming with cuts of meat for the cooking. Think: a couple of hours to grill and sizzle until your heart's content. Find out more here.

Time Out picks: Garlic beef.

First, your table will be invaded by banchan, up to ten of them. Then your meat (pork belly with matured kimchi is good fun, cook them together for a fat-sour-spice mix in one mouthful) arrives, greens along with it and the dips (salted sesame oil and soy) too. You’re already running out of table space but then your side orders (probably a rich hot pot of spicy beef ribs, rice cakes and maybe some fried chicken, too) arrive. It’s a constant problem here but the waiters, oddly smiley for those who wield buckets of burning charcoal at 400°C, will sort it out for you in between dexterously grilling and cutting your meat.

Time Out picks: The usual Korean cuts are represented, but there are also a few rarer meats – fresh king prawns, smoked duck breast, pork cheek, and the option to add matured kimchi and fried rice to your pork belly. Try that.