The Best Korean Restaurants in North York, Compared: Eating Through Koreatown North

Toronto has two Koreatowns, and the bigger one is not on Bloor. The largest concentration of Korean restaurants in the city runs up Yonge Street through North York, roughly from Finch station south to Sheppard — an area locals simply call Koreatown North. It is dense, it is open late, and almost everything worth eating is within walking distance of Finch or North York Centre station. The catch is that the restaurants specialise heavily, so picking the wrong one for what you are craving is easy. Here is how the main players compare.

For soft tofu stew: Buk Chang Dong Soon Tofu

Buk Chang Dong Soon Tofu is the specialist, and it does not pretend otherwise. Soon tofu — the bubbling, chilli-red soft tofu stew that arrives still boiling in a stone pot — is the reason to go, with heat levels you choose yourself. The kitchen also turns out bibimbap in a hot stone pot for anyone at the table who wants something less soupy. Its Yonge and Finch location makes it one of the easiest stops in the neighbourhood to reach without a car.

Go here when the weather is bad and you want one bowl of something restorative rather than a sprawling meal. It is not the spot for a large group ordering across the menu.

For the long-running all-rounder: Nak Won

Nak Won sits right beside Finch station and has been a neighbourhood fixture long enough that locals treat it as the default. Its strength is breadth: Korean staples like kimchi jjigae and bibimbap sit alongside Korean-Chinese dishes including jjajangmyeon, which is a genuinely different cuisine that many Korean restaurants in the city skip entirely.

That makes Nak Won the safest choice for a mixed group where one person wants stew, another wants noodles, and someone else has never eaten Korean food before. It is the least specialised of the group, and in this neighbourhood that is a feature.

For grilling at the table: Daldongnae Korean BBQ

If the point of the evening is smoke and shared plates, Daldongnae Korean BBQ at 6034 Yonge Street is the Koreatown North barbecue option, within walking distance of both Finch and North York Centre stations. Korean BBQ is a fundamentally different experience from stew-and-rice places: you are cooking at the table, the meal stretches out, and the bill scales with how much meat you order.

Worth knowing before you commit: at almost any Korean restaurant in this stretch, banchan — the small complimentary side dishes — arrive before your order does, and they are refillable. At a barbecue table they do a lot of work between rounds of meat.

For something more specific: Finch JungSooNae and Hanyang Jokbal

Two spots reward diners who already know what they want. Finch JungSooNae, at 5754 Yonge Street about five minutes from Finch station, is known for gamjatang — the pork-bone and potato stew — and for ganjang gejang, soy-marinated raw crab that has cycled through TikTok repeatedly. Hanyang Jokbal focuses on jokbal, braised pig's trotters sliced and served for sharing, which is closer to a drinking food than a dinner order.

Neither is a first-visit recommendation. Both are the reason people who live elsewhere in the city make the trip up Yonge.

How to choose

Work backwards from the format, not the ranking. One bowl, eaten fast, in cold weather: Buk Chang Dong Soon Tofu. A group with mismatched appetites or anyone new to the cuisine: Nak Won, where the Korean-Chinese section gives you an escape hatch. A long evening built around shared grilling and a bigger budget: Daldongnae. A specific craving — gamjatang, marinated crab, jokbal — and you already know the dish: Finch JungSooNae or Hanyang Jokbal.

Two practical notes. First, this neighbourhood runs late, and several places in the Yonge and Finch cluster stay open well past when downtown kitchens close, which makes it a genuine late-night option rather than just a dinner destination. Second, take the subway. Parking along this stretch of Yonge is scarce and the walk between Finch and North York Centre stations covers most of what is worth eating.