The Best Places in 한남동

Tucked into a basement in Hannam, this Michelin-starred Mexican restaurant is built around two things the chef treats as a kind of obsession: tortilla and mole, both made with enough care that the nuance is hard to miss. The story goes that the chef spent serious time in Mexico before opening here, and the cooking reflects that without making a show of it. Mezcal and tequila are the expected companions, and the bar program seems to know it.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

A basement contemporary Korean restaurant in Hannam that treats the everyday pantry of Seoul, soybean paste, aged kimchi, raw fish with wild greens, as serious culinary material. The chef reframes familiar home-cooking moves, seasoned salads, braised dishes, pan-fried things, into something considered and unhurried. A rotating pour of traditional Korean liquors runs alongside the food. It holds a Michelin star.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A narrow alley in Seongdong-gu hides this small French bistro that commits to the classics without apology. Coq au vin, bouillabaisse, ratatouille, all prepared the traditional way, in a room warm enough to feel borrowed from someone's home in Lyon. The pâté de campagne with fig jam and toasted baguette is the kind of thing you keep returning to between glasses of wine. A Michelin Guide selection.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The set menu here is structured around Chinese noble titles, which sets the tone at this Cantonese restaurant in Yongsan: a little ceremonial, a lot deliberate. Barbecued pork goes into a high-heat oven after marinating, coming out with the kind of crackling skin that makes you forget the other thirteen dim sum varieties on the table, though the abalone-topped shumai will remind you.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Thai décor and art objects shipped straight from Bangkok set the mood on the second floor of a Hannam side street. Manao is a prix-fixe Thai restaurant where the meal arrives in small courses, so you end up covering a lot of ground in one sitting. Charcoal-grilled meat and seafood come to order, and the kitchen leans into the heat that Thai cooking is supposed to have. The name means "lime" in Thai, which tells you something about the kitchen's general attitude.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A small contemporary restaurant on the fifth floor of a Yongsan building, where the chef cooks European-leaning food shaped almost entirely by Taean, his coastal hometown in South Chungcheong Province. Some dishes arrive with evident technique behind them; others let the ingredients speak with minimal interference. The wine list leans hard into Burgundy, which fits the room's unhurried mood. A Michelin Guide selection.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

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