Tonkatsu in South Korea - 60 Restaurant Picks

The frying fat starts with lard rendered from pork fat in the kitchen, blended with canola and soybean oil. Chilled Jej…

Students and Chungmuro office workers form the lunch queue right outside Dongguk University's main gate. Maze soba, bro…

Incandescent bulbs light a quiet room serving Korean-style Western pork cutlet, opened in 2019 near Seokchon Lake. The…

A thin, crisp coating that never turns soggy lets each cut of pork show its own texture. Sang-rosu-katsu, premium loin…

Deungsim katsu has a band of fat beside the lean meat that tastes nutty, and ansim katsu, cooked to medium, is softer.…

Plenty of bomal, small Jeju sea snails, go into the cream pasta, giving the sauce a sea-salty edge without making it he…

The 2cm in the name is the thickness of the loin used for the saengdeungsim (fresh loin) tonkatsu, and a cut slice show…

The Hapjeong branch also goes by Otoko, Japanese for man, and its tokurosu katsu is anything but delicate. About 240 gr…

The crust stays crisp to the last piece, and both the deungsim (loin) and ansim (tenderloin) donkatsu stay moist inside…

Each cutlet is breaded only when ordered. The crust stays light and crisp and the pork inside keeps its juice and grain…

A separate seating area toward the back gives families with young children room to settle, and soft music keeps the din…

Thick pork in a thin coat of panko shatters lightly at the first bite and stays juicy inside. Deungsim katsu, pork loin…

For a place that fries all day, it is kept remarkably clean, down to kitchen ducts that look new. Thick-cut loin and te…

Fried at low temperature, the pork cutlets come out with a pale golden, light crust. The sang-roseu katsu puts three pi…

The tenderloin is soft enough to fall apart, while the loin is cut thick, keeps a proper chew and has no porky smell. S…

Teuk-rosu katsu uses loin with its fat layer and a fatty cap cut called gabeuri still attached, so each slice chews dif…

One owner fries every cutlet, so even after the handwritten waitlist gets you a seat, food takes another 10-15 minutes.…

Coarse panko shatters loudly around thick pork that is cooked firm yet stays juicy inside. The deungsim-ansim set (loin…

The side here is radish salad, not the usual shredded cabbage. Ansim katsu deopbap sets a tenderloin cutlet over rice w…

Down a half-flight of stairs, Jeongdon's third branch opens into a dining room that feels wider and cleaner than most k…

Getting in means taking a number through Catchtable's remote queue, and even when your turn comes you wait again inside…

Since 1997 this Changdong basement shop has coated pork in breadcrumbs it grinds coarsely itself, frying to a craggy, c…

Numbered tickets are handed out before opening, and diners go in by number once the doors open. The hire katsu wraps th…

Finding it takes a little effort: the shop is in a maze-like basement corridor of restaurants under a building in Jongn…