The One Restaurant That’s Never Let Me Down
Thirty-plus years at Won Jo, the K-Town Korean BBQ joint that taught me to never wear a suit (or clothes I couldn’t wash.)
The first time, I came straight from work with a few friends from college. I made the rookie mistake of not changing out of my suit. Won Jo cooks over open, in-table grills — the smoke gets into everything — and that suit smelled like beef bulgogi for days. I’ve never made that mistake again. Lesson one of Won Jo: only wear clothes you can wash. Lesson two took me longer to appreciate, and it’s the reason I’m writing this.
The food has never changed. And in New York, that’s almost a miracle.
I have watched restaurants in this city open to a uber-hyped line around the block and close before the next summer. I have watched chefs chase trends, cut corners, get bought, get bored. Won Jo just… kept being Won Jo. Same grills, same quality, same impossible consistency, year after year, while the rest of the city reinvented itself around it.
Even the one big change proves the point. In 2010 it changed hands and changed names — technically it’s “New Wonjo” now. New owners, a few more tables. And here’s the thing that tells you everything: you can barely tell. They kept the name, kept the room’s soul, and kept the food exactly as good as it had always been. Most ownership changes are where a restaurant goes to die. This one was a transplant that took. They understood what was sacred and left it alone.
What did change is who’s in the room. When I started coming, Won Jo was Korean immigrants and Korean New Yorkers — a neighborhood institution that happened to let the rest of us in. It’s still heavily Korean, but now it’s everyone: every nationality, every kind of New Yorker, all crowded around the same smoking grills. The crowd globalized; the kitchen didn’t budge. That’s the trick to lasting decades in this city — be ruthless about your core and relaxed about everything else.
What I order, every single time:
Beef Bulgogi — thin, tender beef in that sweet-savory soy-sesame-garlic marinade, seared right at the table. It comes with banchan: the kimchi, the cool cucumber salads, the sautéed vegetables, the leafy greens for wrapping. Building each bite is half the fun.
Tteokbokki — chewy cylinders of rice cake in a thick, sweet-and-spicy chili sauce with onions and peppers. Korea’s great street food, and the dish I’d convert a skeptic with.
Bibimbap, the dolsot version — the mixed rice bowl served in a screaming-hot stone bowl that crisps the bottom layer of rice into something you’ll fight over, topped with vegetables, meat, a fried egg, all pulled together with gochujang.
Let me be honest about what this place is and isn’t. Won Jo is not a gourmet restaurant — if you want this food elevated there’s Cote (trust me it’s amazing, see my Restaurant List Coming soon). There’s no tasting menu, no hushed room, no Michelin anything. What it has instead is something rarer: it’s an experience, every single time. The energy in there feels less like a neighborhood spot and more like a hip, buzzing room that happens to serve some of the best Korean barbecue in the city. I’ve brought my kids here more times than I can count — they love it. I’ve brought friends. I have never once had a bad night at Won Jo. Not one.
I’ve tried the other Korean BBQ places. The fancier ones, the newer ones, the ones people post about. I always come back here.
A city is mostly things that disappear. The few that stay — that refuse to change the one thing worth keeping — become a kind of home you didn’t know you’d chosen. Won Jo is mine. Just don’t wear the good suit.
The Long Table — food, restaurants, and the New York that survives at the table. My taste, not a star rating.
Open Tab → I dove deeper: Won Jo is one line on a much longer list. The full Randy NYC evolving list — the burgers, the tacos, the one martini worth the trip — is its own thread, coming soon.