Restaurant GIWA serves a curated selection of authentic Korean dishes that bridge traditional preparation with a modern, contemporary aesthetic. Diners encounter plates centered on balanced flavor profiles, featuring essential staples like seasoned banchan, flame-grilled meats, and hearty fermented stews. The kitchen prioritizes precise heat application and high-quality ingredients to maintain the integrity of classic recipes within a streamlined, polished environment. Every composition on the menu reflects a commitment to cultural authenticity while presenting the food through a cleaner, more minimalist lens. The space focuses on efficiency and clarity, allowing the vibrant colors and bold textures of the primary proteins and pickled vegetables to define the sensory experience. This approach provides a focused exploration of Korean culinary fundamentals for those seeking consistent quality and standard-setting techniques in their meal.
Restaurant GIWA stands out as a culinary gem in Montreal, celebrated for its elevated, authentic, and thoughtfully crafted Korean cuisine. Patrons frequently praise the menu for being intentionally concise, allowing for a high level of precision and freshness in every dish, especially the unique sotbap and the highly recommended fried chicken. The overall dining experience is characterized by elegant presentation, complex flavor profiles, and creative desserts that surprise and delight guests. Many reviewers highlight the warm and knowledgeable service, noting that the staff takes great pride in explaining the traditional techniques and ingredients behind each meal. Whether visiting for a cozy dinner or a special celebration, guests consistently find the experience memorable, delicious, and well worth the visit.
L'entrée de poulet frit est tout simplement incroyable, facilement le meilleur poulet frit coréen que j'ai mangé, comparable aux meilleurs qu'on peut retrouver en Corée. Le tartare de boeuf était tout aussi exceptionnel. Excellent service du début à la fin, je recommande fortement.
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.
Jan 14, 2026
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A Korean gem to have in Montreal! If there's one thing to emphasize it's their showcasing Korean ingredients & flavours not found elsewhere: omija in a cocktail, mugwort in their tiramisu dessert, marinated egg yolks for the rice dishes, perilla oil ice cream! The menu is small & well thought out, every dish showcases strong elements of Korean favourites & has great variety. The sot-bap (rice dishes) are beautifully presented & come with tasty banchan. The gimbap is airy, crunchy & packed with flavour. The fried chicken is a MUST, the smoked Gouda foam sends it through the roof. & do ask what the chef's dessert is because he's always coming up with a creative combo of Korean ingredients. Sharing some pictures from their holiday special set menu, features regular menu items but in a smaller format for this special menu.
Superbe expérience. Les plats étaient délicieux & de grande qualité. Un peu plus cher qu'ailleurs, mais c'est dû à l'attention des détails & à la richesse des saveurs. Nous avons bien apprécié & y retournerons certainement !
Made a reservation here for someone who loves Korean food on their birthday; the food was surely the highlight of our night. Each meal was served with sides, & you could clearly see the chef's creativity shine through with the unusual ingredients they chose for their dishes; they all complemented each other perfectly well, each bite tasting different. The Giwa was perhaps one of the best desserts I've been served since a very long time: with matcha mousse, chocolate & vanilla ice cream hiding a biscuit cake underneath it all. All in all, I would go back without a hesitation.
