Introduction

Happy new year all!!  😀  We spent the first half of 2023 visiting all of NYC’s one (and almost-one) Michelin star Korean restaurants with a considered dessert menu.  Check out that list of NYC’s best fancy Korean desserts here. If however, your budget doesn’t extend to the over USD$ 200++ tasting menus of those Michelin fine dining restaurants, or if you just want something less fancy, we spent the second half of 2023 checking out the dessert offerings at more casual modern Korean spots that are opening up in NYC at an increasingly frenetic pace. The results of our gallivanting are compiled in this volume of “NYC’s Best Restaurant Desserts.”  The desserts found at these spots are more home-y in style, but still nonetheless showcase an incredibly diverse range of traditional and also contemporary Korean flavours. Here’s a call to NYC’s Chinese and Japanese restaurants to step up their dessert game asap! 🙂  

---

Atoboy

• Dessert destination: Atoboy, Koreatown/Gramercy, Manhattan.
•  Budget: $$$ ($75pp tasting menu).
• Must-eat dessert: Cardamom doughnuts.
• Short and sweet story:  Housed in a starkly industrial place, Atoboy is probably one of the older restaurants on this list, yet it continues to attract a very hip (and dare we say, majority non-Asian) crowd of diners. It offers one of the more affordable tasting menus in the city, but for us, the savouries don’t really reflect much of a Korean sensibility. It felt more like a modern American restaurant with a dash of Korean flavours.  Desserts are available at an extra charge, and include toasty warm cardamom doughnuts and a bowl of sujeonggwa shaved ice, where the traditional cinnamon tones somewhat struggle for attention against peach yogurt and burrata.

---

Little Mad

• Dessert destination: Little Mad, Koreatown, Manhattan.
• Budget: $$$ ($95 tasting menu).
• Must eat dessert: Come here for the savouries.
• Short and sweet story: Our favourite under $100 tasting menu in NYC can be found at Little Mad.  It starts off with a three-part appetizer course reminiscent of Mari‘s creativity — that cornbread-like bungeoppang was particularly memorable. Each subsequent main course was excellent, and especially don’t miss the galbi which was accompanied with the most satisfying little bowl of jook. There are three desserts on the menu, all of which err more on the Western side of things, and which appear to also seasonally rotate. On our visit, there was a pate a choux, rice pudding and a very subtle earl grey shaved ice showered with a fruit harvest. They were not particularly mind-blowing on their own, but they did round up as a sweet epilogue to the preceding savoury courses.  

---

Moono

• Dessert destination: Moono, Koreatown, Manhattan.
• Budget: $$-$$$.
• Must eat dessert: Both desserts – the buckwheat and burdock ice cream.
• Short and sweet story: Of all the places on this list, Moono is the one that we have visited repeatedly, especially for dates or to bring our parents. Inside, it’s one of the most beautiful dining spaces in NYC. The galbi, hoe muchim, and fried chicken especially are repeat orders for us. As for the naengmyeon that has received a lot of press attention, we prefer the one at Olle for its icier temperature and more sour tang. There are just two desserts on the menu at Moono, and for both, we applaud Moono’s unabashed use of very traditional Korean-Chinese flavours.  The simple black bowl of “Buckwheat” ice cream ($10) that sits on top of a bruleed corn custard is very easy to love.  Offset with a half-moon of dark chocolate mousse, the “Burdock” ice cream ($11) makes for a study of contrasts, with its earthy tones reminding us of a herbal soup our dad always cooks when we are sick. 

---

Ariari

• Dessert destination: Ariari, East Village, Manhattan.
• Budget: $$-$$$.
• Must eat dessert: Corn creme brulee.
• Short and sweet story: If Moono is the modern Korean restaurant for your parents or special date, Ariari is more suited for casual friend hang-outs.  The vibe is distinctively louder, and the food is less stylized and more home-y. There are two desserts on offer. One is a small glass bowl of pink-coloured shaved ice flavoured with omija or magnolia berry ($11). It reminds us of a childhood tea or soup drink that our father used to make. The other dessert of sweet corn creme brulee custard is like a toasty hug on a chilly night ($9).

---

Samwoojung

• Dessert destination: Samwoojung, Koreatown, Manhattan.
• Budget: $$.
• Must eat dessert: Rice sherbet.
• Short and sweet story: An import from Seoul, Samwoojung’s specialty is a steaming vat of bulgogi. We dream of this on a monthly basis. 😛  After all that beef, there are two desserts on offer to act as a palate cleanser. Placed on a bed of ricotta cheese and laced with honey, the “Icy Persimmon” ($6) is a semi-frozen persimmon that has a very sweet centre. We loved the “Rice Sherbet” ($9) covered in a cloak of rice puffs a little more.

---

Hojokban

• Dessert destination: Hojokban, Koreatown, Manhattan.
• Budget: $$.
• Must eat dessert: Yakbap/yaksik.
• Short and sweet story: Hojokban is another import from Seoul, but whereas Samwoojung’s specialty is the bulgogi, the specialty here is galbi.  There a wide variety of dishes here, and aside from the galbi, don’t miss the octopus tteokbokki, which has a heightened level of spice and a slightly different earthy tone to the otherwise traditional sauce. There are also two desserts available. The “Frozen Makgeolli” ($9) has a very punchy rice wine flavour. We loved more, the “Yakbap Mont Blanc” ($11), where a hat of chestnut cream sat on a stout square of sweet glutinous rice embedded with nuts. 

---

Seoul Salon

• Dessert destination: Seoul Salon, Koreatown, Manhattan.
• Budget: $$.
• Must eat dessert: Banana milk shaved ice.
• Short and sweet story: If you are in the mood for some great cocktails and a place with a pumping vibe, Seoul Salon is a great choice. Come here also for the giant pan of mala pork belly.  There is only one dessert on the menu, and if you love bananas or banana pudding, Seoul Salon’s “Banana Milk Shaved Ice” ($13) is for you. It’s one of the creamiest shaved ice that we have had. Be forewarned that you will need to love bananas to fully enjoy this.

---

Konban

• Dessert destination:  Konban, Chelsea, Manhattan.
• Budget: $$.
• Must eat dessert: Both desserts – corn ice cream and yuzu coconut shaved ice. 
• Short and sweet story: Taking over a serene underground courtyard garden space that used to house one of our favourite Japanese restaurants, Naoki Takahashi, Konban makes this list because although the savoury offerings are unmistakably Japanese in style, it is (another) export from Seoul. Don’t miss the restaurant’s signature katsu, of course, nor the corn rib and mazemen noodle. As for desserts, they are inflected with a slight Korean edge. The white chocolate-moulded corn ice cream ($12) is one of the best restaurant desserts that we have had in a long time. The other dessert on the menu is a snowy bowl of light shaved ice ($12) injected with the tang of yuzu, slightly creaminess from coconut, and embellished with a hat of pomelo.

---

Palpal (now closed as of time of publication)

• Dessert destination: Palpal, Koreatown, Manhattan.
• Budget: $$-$$$.
• Must eat dessert: Cocoball shaved ice.
• Short and sweet story: Housed in a somewhat stark minimalist space similar to Atoboy, Palpal offered a slightly elevated, but still very casual home-style meal. We loved the appetizer “street food” share plates the most (especially the nurunji), but the generously-proportioned main meat dishes were excellent as well. Palpal had two shaved ice flavours on its dessert menu– strawberry or cocoball. For the cocoball shaved ice, a mound of earl grey flavoured shaved ice was snowcapped with a glacier of earl grey cream and rivulets of black sugar syrup. Not for the faint-hearted, it made for a very sweet epilogue.