Skip to content
Quida 日本語

SeoulVisited March 2022 Views –

Onjium, Seoul: A Korean Court-Cuisine Lunch near Gyeongbokgung Palace

A purple-lined shell holding a chopped filling topped with fine yellow and white threads, set on a pale green plate pressed with overlapping petal shapes, on a round red board.
A purple-lined shell with a chopped filling and fine yellow and white threads, on a pale green plate pressed with overlapping petal shapes. March 2022.
How to order Address & map

Onjium (온지음) is a Korean fine-dining restaurant in Seochon, Seoul, near Gyeongbokgung Palace. It serves a modern take on Korean royal court cuisine (궁중음식, gungjung eumsik, the cooking of the Joseon royal court), according to Wikipedia, and Visit Seoul, the city's tourism site, describes it as a culinary studio that brings traditional cooking back for future generations.

What Onjium served in March 2022

I photographed a lunch at Onjium in March 2022, and the tableware changes from dish to dish. A wide plate holds five groups of bite-size pieces, one of them a dark piece topped with a lacy chip.

Five groups of bite-size pieces on a wide pale green plate: a dark piece topped with a lacy chip, two green pieces, two orange-dusted squares, two stacked slices that look like pressed meat and two glossy brown slices, on a pale wooden counter.
Five groups of bite-size pieces on a wide pale green plate, March 2022.

Another dish sits in a cream bowl with a ruffled rim. Its pieces look like crab, scallop, octopus and thin slices of pear, scattered with red seeds that look like pomegranate.

A cream bowl with a ruffled rim holding pieces that look like crab, scallop, octopus and pear, scattered with small green leaves, dark flakes and red seeds that look like pomegranate, with a white dome at the center.
A ruffled cream bowl with pieces that look like crab, scallop, octopus and pear, March 2022.

Visit Seoul says the menu at Onjium changes monthly with the seasons, while a March 2025 reviewer on Tistory, a Korean blog platform, understood it to change every two months. Either way, Onjium's dishes today are likely to differ from these photos.

Bibimbap-style rice at Onjium

Bibimbap (비빔밥) is rice with seasoned vegetables and other toppings that you mix before eating. In my photo, someone in a white jacket holds a wide pale bowl of rice with the toppings in separate patches. The March 2025 review covers a November 2024 dinner and shows a menu card listing goldongban (골동반), translated on the card as old-fashion bibimbap. The reviewer says Onjium served it with radish kimchi (무김치) and a seaweed soup.

Someone in a white jacket holds a wide pale bowl of rice topped with dark greens, yellow shreds, brown shreds and dark flakes in separate patches, over a stainless-steel surface.
A wide pale bowl of rice held over a stainless-steel surface, with toppings in separate patches, March 2022.

Onjium's window view and dining bar

Visit Seoul's Korean-language page, edited in January 2022, says the windows at Onjium look out over the greenery of Gyeongbokgung. The same page says Onjium added a dining bar beside its open kitchen, so one person can have lunch there. My photos show dishes on a pale wooden counter with a stainless-steel surface behind it, which looks like that bar.

Windows of the dining room in March 2022 looking onto bare trees, a drooping yellow-green tree and, far off, a tiered tower roof, with white-clothed tables and black chairs beyond a pale wooden counter in the foreground.
The dining room windows in March 2022, with white-clothed tables and black chairs beyond a pale wooden counter.

Onjium prices and booking

Onjium's lunch cost ₩170,000 in the March 2025 review, and the Polle app listing read on November 14, 2026 shows ₩200,000. Onjium's dinner is ₩250,000 in the review and ₩300,000 on Polle. Both sources list Onjium's wine and traditional-liquor pairings separately. Wikipedia links to Catchtable, in English and Korean, for Onjium reservations.

How to order

Show this to the staff

점심 코스로 예약했어요.

jeomsim koseuro yeyakaesseoyo

I have a lunch course reservation.

알레르기가 있어요.

allereugiga isseoyo

I have an allergy.

전통주 페어링도 부탁드려요.

jeontongju peeoringdo butakdeuryeoyo

I'd also like the traditional-liquor pairing, please.

A photo in the March 2025 review shows a printed menu card with each dish in Korean and English.

日本語で読む

Sources checked