Welcome to GIWA, where authentic Korean flavors meet modern creativity. Enjoy shareable plates, local wines, and fresh, seasonal dishes in the heart of Verdun. Join us for a unique dining experience!
GIWA is widely praised for innovative Korean cooking in a focused, small menu that highlights sotbap rice dishes, carefully crafted banchan, and inventive desserts such as doenjang creme brulee and perilla oil ice cream. Flavors are described as authentic yet refined, with standout items including fried chicken, beef tartare, gimbap, seafood platters, and a balance of textures and seasonings that feels like elevated dining. Several reviews note a warm, intimate atmosphere and attentive service, though some mention occasional seating or heat issues and pricing questions. Overall, GIWA is seen as a rare, high quality Korean dining experience in Montreal, a place to return for thoughtful preparation and presentation, with desserts often singled out as memorable.
I've had many good restaurant experiences in Montreal but this is the first one that has been so good that I need to write a review. The food was delicious, creative, & genuinely delightful (I loved the personal-sized portions of the side dishes, as well as the dishware itself). For the level of service & food quality I would have expected a much higher bill. Can't wait to return
Went there for the first time before Christmas, it was so delicious, generous portions, nice presentation & friendly service. Very cute place & top quality authentic Korean food. I'll be back for sure!
Restaurant Giwa is not a'Korean restaurant' in the way that term has come to mean lately. It is something far rarer.
The focus here is ?? (sotbap): rice cooked to order in an individual heavy metal pot, layered with carefully chosen ingredients, then finished so that the rice develops structure & contrast (soft grains at the top & a crisp, nutty crust at the bottom). It's a dish that demands precision & there is nowhere to hide mistakes. This is one of the reasons sotbap is uncommon even in Korea & almost never the central focus of a restaurant.
I lived in Seoul for over a decade & only encountered sotbap in one neighborhood (ie Seoul's Seongbuk-dong) where it tends to appear in restrained tradition-minded kitchens, rather than the mainstream spots that one can find anywhere. In my lifetime of actively seeking out quality Korean cuisine, I have never seen a restaurant outside Korea with sotbap on the menu, let alone a place dedicated to the dish, & I would be genuinely surprised if anything comparable exists even in major Koreatowns like Los Angeles.
What makes Giwa exceptional is not rigid adherence to recipes or performative authenticity, but care. The menu is deliberately narrow, which is exactly what you want for a dish like this. This restraint signals confidence & quality, particularly when compared to the'all you can eat meat' restos of dubious quality or the'every Korean dish our chef is willing to cook' format. The sotbap itself is outstanding across the board. Every version we've tried has been excellent, from the vegetarian mushroom to the cod, & the rice is granted the role it deserves, as the true foundation of the meal, rather than as some sort of neutral filler or side.
The level of technique throughout the meal is striking. The appetizers are prepared with a precision on par with the sort of well-reviewed ??? restaurants in Seoul (formal Korean dining where a sequence of meticulously composed dishes replaces the idea of a single'main.'). The execution feels closer to high-end French or Japanese kitchens than to the casual Korean dining most people expect. There is clear thought behind every element. & there's also some creativity here: a doen-jang crème brûlée should not work on paper, but it does & it's memorable, it's the dish that some friends are still talking about a month after our last visit.
The banchan (side dishes) deserve special mention. In Montreal, banchan are nearly always an afterthought: bulk kimchi, nuclear-yellow danmuji & barely-seasoned bean sprouts that are interchangeable & forgettable. At Giwa, the banchan are clearly handmade, clearly intentional, & clearly cared for. You're served a generous spread, I think 10-12 items, & each one feels considered. This alone puts Giwa in a different category from nearly every other Korean restaurant in the city, if not the country. (We drove to Tofino & back last summer, & ate as much Korean as we could along the way, so I feel fairly qualified to say this.)
Context matters. Montreal is full of Korean restaurants right now, many of them middling, many not even Korean-run. Most seem to be lazily riding the rise of the K-food/K-pop/K-whatever trend without any sort of commitment to quality. Giwa cuts through that noise completely. It is traditional without being rigid, refined without being precious, & ambitious in the best sense.
This restaurant is genuinely unique in Montreal & arguably one of the most serious, thoughtful presentations of Korean food you can find outside Korea. The fact that it hasn't yet been written up properly in the local media is baffling. Giwa deserves attention, not because it's trendy but because it's excellent.
I was extremely impressed with the food quality, flavours, & the chef's creativity. Great staff & amazing service. 10/10 will be back & will recommend to friends!
One of the best meals (& cocktails) I've had in the city. I don't think I left a single thing on my plate. The presentation is so elegant but the taste is what gets me coming back every time. I like when a menu is not complicated because it focuses on quality. Also, the service was lovely. A real gem. Hurry before it gets too popular!
Sep 23, 2025
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This restaurant just opened a few weeks ago & was intrigued by the menu. They serve more elevated Korean dishes with a twist. The menu is small but every dish was executed amazingly. We started off with their rendition on a gimbap & the beef tartare. Both were excellent & the texture of the fried seaweed was great! For mains we got the beef sotbap, fish sotbap & the haemul jang which was an assorted raw soy marinated seafood platter. All dishes were fresh & delicious. My fave being the beef sotbap. I really appreciated the attention to detail here as every side dish was tasty & well presented. To finish off the night we ordered desserts. DO NOT skip on the desserts because they were phenomenal! We got the gochuchang brownie & the pear, perilla & lime ginger sorbet/ice creams. There was so many different textures & flavours for all the desserts. The perilla ice cream was my fave! Never had tasted that flavour before & would recommend. Overall I really enjoyed this restaurant & will definitely be back. It's difficult to find restaurants at reasonable prices with high quality dishes & innovative ideas with almost flawless execution. GIWA definitely delivered!
My wife & I recently visited Giwa, a newly opened Korean restaurant in Verdun, & we were truly impressed. A perfect blend of modern & traditional Korean elements.
The food was absolutely fantastic. Every dish we tried was thoughtfully prepared & beautifully presented. The flavors were authentic yet refined, & it was clear that high-quality ingredients were . We're already looking forward to going back & trying more dishes.
