Soul Dining

For a gauge on how far Sydney’s Korean dining scene has come in the last decade, Soul Dining is one to watch. Illa Kim and Daero Lee’s nomadic restaurant (originally in Surry Hills, now in the city) was one of the first places to put a modern Australian spin on Korean cooking, an idea they’ve also brought to the brunch sphere at their Surry Hills eatery, Soul Deli.

Though the dishes at Soul Dining are elaborate and veer towards fine-dining, the vibe is more casual than that. This is a place to visit with a crew, and get everyone mopping up the jus from a ssamjang-slathered pork cutlet with hunks of rice-wine-fermented bread. Express lunches are a thing here, as are special occasion dinners.

When Broadsheet visited, another dish we tried was the signature prawn tteokbokki, a sambal-spiked riff on the classic Korean street food. And the cooked-to-order claypot fried rice with truffle butter and Glacier 51 toothfish, a dish we can’t stop thinking about.

On the drinks side, Soul takes its wine program seriously, which has been designed to work with the menu’s contempo-Korean flavours and throws plenty of Australian producers in the mix.