Impossible to get into and thriving outside of dining trends inside a boxy, minimal building in the Mission, the upscale Korean BBQ restaurant San Ho Won is one of San Francisco’s best nights out. Built around a focused idea with a fine dining sensibility, the restaurant reflects chef Corey Lee’s interest in creating something both accessible and high quality alongside his work at the Michelin-starred Benu. “When we first opened, I felt that Korean food was underrepresented for an area that’s so interested in restaurants and food,” he says. “Our hope was for San Ho Won to contribute to diners’ awareness of and options for Korean food.”
San Ho Won accomplishes this by serving a balanced mix of familiar and fresh dishes, from hearty kimchi jjigae made with pork jowl to umami-packed jook enriched with abalone. Lee wants Korean customers, of which there are plenty, to “satisfy their craving for traditional Korean food but also discover something new,” while non-Korean diners are invited to become devoted fans. When opening, he thought, “The first step was for the Korean audience to appreciate what we were doing; after that, others would naturally follow.”
At the restaurant, two menus are offered. The $118 per person tasting menu is designed to make decision-making easy and works especially well for large groups, with generous servings of silky egg soufflé, fried rice with peas and salted shrimp, and a range of marinated and grilled meats. The à la carte menu is plentiful and includes banchan, clever appetizers like beef tartare with Asian pear, and mains that appeal to both nostalgia and curiosity.
Consistently included on “Best of San Francisco” lists, San Ho Won has remained more or less the same since opening in 2021, both in its simple, industrial design and in its culinary offerings. That consistency has been central to the restaurant’s success, even as Lee has begun considering what comes next. In the future, he says, “we’d like to offer similar kinds of concepts to diners in other locations aside from San Francisco, and continue spreading the appreciation for Korean food.”
