Manchester’s Korean food scene stretches back to 1985, when Koreana became the first Korean restaurant to open anywhere outside London, and now runs all the way to the UK’s largest Korean BBQ restaurant, which opened its 165-cover Piccadilly Plaza site in October 2025. In between sits a tiny Upper Brook Street kitchen with queues out the door, a karaoke-equipped restaurant that’s hosted visiting K-pop stars, and a Korean street food stall that started life in a converted horse trailer on the festival circuit. Here are the eight best Korean restaurants in Manchester worth seeking out in 2026.

Koreana opened on King Street West in 1985, becoming the first Korean restaurant to open anywhere in the UK outside London. It’s owned by Alex and Hyun Kim, whose parents previously ran a long-established banqueting resort in Korea, and the restaurant has traded from the same city centre spot for four decades.

Koreana was the first to introduce Manchester to bulgogi — grilled marinated meats — and its bibimbap, served in a traditional heated stoneware pot, remains one of the dishes most closely associated with the restaurant. It’s less about following trends than maintaining a genuine piece of the city’s dining history.

Koreana — 40A King Street West, Manchester M3 2WY | koreana.co.uk

Chef-owner Byunghee Kwon first opened a shop on Upper Brook Street in 2005 to serve Manchester’s Korean student community, before the current restaurant opened in 2010 and quickly built a reputation that’s kept queues spilling out the door ever since. It remains a tiny, no-frills operation rather than a polished dining room.

Kwon’s handmade kimchi, made to her traditional family recipe, anchors a menu of Korean classics like jeon and bibimbap alongside barbecue dishes including squid and pork bulgogi. Its location next to the Royal Infirmary and student halls has made it a fixture for generations of Manchester students.

Seoul Kimchi — 275 Upper Brook Street, Manchester M13 0HR

Ban Di Bul sits on Princess Street on the edge of Chinatown, close to Manchester’s Town Hall, and operates as the sister restaurant to Annyeong Korean Restaurant & Bar elsewhere in the city centre. The two share a similar tasting-set format built around sharing BBQ meats with starters and sides.

The menu covers hot pot, tabletop barbecue and noodle dishes across a broad Korean repertoire, making it a reliable choice for both quick solo meals and larger group bookings. Its central location keeps it busy with a mix of regulars and passing footfall.

Ban Di Bul — 77 Princess Street, Manchester M2 4EG | bandibul.co.uk

Annyeong occupies Half Moon Chambers just off Market Street, combining a contemporary Korean restaurant with a karaoke bar in a way few other Manchester restaurants attempt. It’s become enough of a destination that visiting Korean celebrities, including Kim Jong-kook, HAHA, ATEEZ and Enhypen, have stopped by.

Mood lighting and padded leather seating set a more polished tone than most of the city’s Korean restaurants, with hotpots and tabletop BBQ served alongside a broad range of traditional dishes. The karaoke rooms give it a genuine night-out identity beyond just the food.

Annyeong — Half Moon Chambers, 5-7 Chapel Walks, Manchester M2 1HN | annyeong.co.uk

Bunsik opened its 2,000-square-foot Piccadilly Gardens site in 2023, the owner’s first location outside London. The name refers to inexpensive, quick Korean street food, and the format leans fully into that idea rather than offering a traditional sit-down menu.

Corn dogs, kimbap, tteokbokki, Korean fried chicken and Korean chicken burgers make up the bulk of the menu, aimed at a faster, more casual crowd than the city’s tabletop BBQ restaurants. It’s since expanded with a second Manchester-area site planned for the Trafford Centre.

Bunsik — 1a Parker Street, Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester M1 1RG | bunsik.co.uk

Bullgogi opened at Piccadilly Plaza in October 2025 as the UK’s largest Korean BBQ restaurant, with 165 covers across a site run by the same Maguro Group behind Bunsik. South Korean-born chef Hans Boo, with over a decade of culinary experience, leads the kitchen.

Every booth comes with a digital interactive menu on a mounted tablet, letting diners browse and order premium meats, seafood and vegetables to cook at their own tabletop grill. It’s a genuinely different scale of Korean BBQ to anything else previously available in the city.

Bullgogi — 6A Piccadilly Plaza, Manchester M1 4AH | bullgogi.com

Azuma sits on Cavendish Street in Hulme, running a Korean and Chinese menu side by side in a relaxed, unpretentious room rather than committing to one national cuisine exclusively. The all-you-can-eat hotpot and Korean-style BBQ buffet format is the main draw.

Diners cook their own meat and seafood at the table as part of the buffet price, making it one of the better value ways into Korean BBQ in the city compared with the à la carte format used elsewhere on this list. It’s a popular choice for larger groups looking to share a long, sociable meal.

Azuma — 73 Cavendish Street, Manchester M15 6BN | theazuma.com

BAB Korean Food is run by Mike and Jina Lee, who started out serving Korean street food from a converted horse trailer on the UK festival circuit before settling into a permanent pitch at Kargo MKT, a waterfront food hall in Salford Quays, in late 2023.

The name comes from the Korean word for rice, and the menu builds smoky BBQ flavours and punchy sauces around rice bowls rather than a full restaurant menu. It’s one of the more unusual origin stories on this list, and a genuinely distinctive stall among Kargo MKT’s line-up of vendors.

BAB Korean Food — Kargo MKT, The Quays, Salford M50 3AG