Moono – a landmarked gateway to modern Korean New York

On East 32nd Street, on the quiet eastern edge of Koreatown, Moono occupies a landmarked three-storey building that chef Hoyoung Kim turned into his second restaurant, after the one-Michelin-starred Jua. The name is the Korean word for gateway, chosen deliberately: Moono is pitched as a passage between cultures, introducing a wider audience to Korean cooking beyond barbecue and bibimbap. Behind a modest street frontage, the building opens into a bi-level dining room with cathedral-height ceilings and terracotta tiling that make its block's other restaurants look plain by comparison. The kitchen, though, keeps things unpretentious: portions are generous, the pace is brisk, and the menu runs from blood-sausage ssam and twice-fried chicken to a bowl of uni-topped rice and a truffle jjajangmyeon. Moono is Selected in the MICHELIN Guide, the kind of recognition that confirms serious cooking without yet awarding it a star.

01The room and the setting

Moono's building long predates the restaurant: it is one of the recognised landmarks on this stretch of Manhattan, and Hoyoung Kim's team has kept its bones rather than gutting them. It occupies a landmarked three-story building that makes its neighbours look uncultured, and inside, stained-glass windows and high ceilings lend a quietly classic register, while warm, honeyed tones keep the room inviting. The bi-level room keeps its terracotta tiling and cathedralesque ceilings, yet somehow still feels kind of casual. Climb the stairs and the second floor has a balcony that peers into the main dining room below, so the whole volume of the space reads at once. At the front, a cocktail bar is built around Korean spirits rather than the usual gin-and-tonic roster, a quiet signal of what is to come.

02The chef

Moono is the second project by chef Hoyoung Kim, building upon the success of his renowned Michelin 1-starred Jua. Where Jua works as a set, nightly progression, Moono is looser and à la carte, letting Kim range across Korean regional cooking without locking diners into one narrative. It sits alongside sister restaurants Atoboy and LittleMad, though it reads as considerably more traditional than either. Kim's stated vision for the room was to bridge the gap between casual and fine dining, serving polished versions of dishes a Korean family would recognise rather than invented fusion plates.

Insider tip

Selected in the MICHELIN Guide; dinner nightly, brunch on weekends; reservations release at midnight.

03The cooking

The kitchen treats Korean technique as a framework for precision rather than spectacle. The menu is broken into sections such as hwe/muchim and seafood/meat, with overachieving takes on things like mandoo, blood-sausage ssam, and Korean fried chicken. Twice-fried chicken and beef tartare anchor the card, alongside a dry-aged branzino grilled until the skin crisps like a chip and finished with soy mustard sauce. Bubbling hotpots and a bowl of Queen's Gold rice topped with a mountain of uni round out a menu built for range rather than a single showpiece. Larger dishes, including the beef jeongol hot pot and that branzino, are sized big enough to share, which is how most tables here seem to eat.

04What to order

Moono's menu rewards grazing. Expect beef tartare, assorted Korean pancakes, a beef-patty rice cake, a spicy kimchi dumpling hot pot, a bowl of uni pot rice and North Korean-style cold noodles among the dishes that come up again and again. The galbi-jjim, Moono's braised short rib, is frequently recommended for being flavourful, tender and well-braised — regulars return for it as much as for the branzino. If truffle is your weakness, the truffle jjajangmyeon delivers plenty of it, built on the thick, fermented black-bean sauce of the Korean-Chinese classic.

05When to go and booking

Moono is open for dinner seven days a week, with brunch added on Saturdays and Sundays. Reservations are released daily at midnight and can be booked up to twenty-one days in advance, worth knowing if a particular evening matters. Moono is Selected in the MICHELIN Guide, and in 2025 it was ranked #283 in North America by Opinionated About Dining, making it one of the strongest value options in New York's Korean dining tier. Go with a group if possible — the hot pots, the branzino and the ssam plates are built for sharing, and a full table does more justice to the room than two seats for a quiet dinner.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.