25 Nov 2025
James Cameron braves the weather to queue up for the city’s new hotspot…
Queueing for restaurants is very much the in thing at the moment. People seem reluctant to take a chance on a place unless they have to stand out in the cold and wet for at least an hour beforehand, preferably putting photos of themselves doing it onto Instagram.
St Albans seems to be catching up on the trend now, as evidenced by new Korean restaurant Won in London Road. It has been open for over a month now, and I don’t recall ever walking past when it was open and not seeing a queue snaking outside. So we decided to head over to see what all the fuss was about.
The wait wasn’t actually too bad on the Saturday lunchtime that we went. There was only one group ahead of us, and there were a couple of things that helped to pass the time. One is a bench on which you can rest your weary feet, and the other is the fact that you can glare at all the lucky people who are already seated and dining, trying to decide if you want what she’s having or seeing if your mastery of the Force is enough to make them forgo coffee and dessert.
The decor once you do make it inside is stylish and the staff welcoming. Apart from one corner which is festooned in oddly 1970s wallpaper the general mood is warm and wooden, like eating in a sauna. Glassware and cutlery is equally classy, and I was a fan of the metal chopsticks.
They have a great selection of drinks you’re unlikely to find anywhere else, including the best selection of iced teas in St Albans and the intriguingly named Bong Bong Grape Juice. The Ginger and Lemon Iced Tea is basically worth a visit on its own.
There is a wide range of types of food on offer, including plenty of vegan options. To start we went for the Kimchi Gyoza, which were fantastically crispy with a great spicy flavour that we would return to a few times. They certainly looked handmade and were of a good size. You also got four of them, which makes sharing easier, whereas often in Japanese restaurants they give you five which can lead to some awkward stand-offs with the chopsticks for the final dumpling.
The only oddity was the very small portion of soy sauce they were served with, which was essentially consumed in one dip.
Chicken Bites also impressed with their crispiness, at a level KFC could only dream of, and a flavoursome gochujang glaze. The Tofu equivalent completed the trinity of crispiness, and these also featured a surprising level of creaminess to the tofu that I have not come across before.
Each dish was beautifully presented, although these were as nothing compared to the mains when they arrived.
We tried two different types of Bibimbap, a rice bowl topped with vegetables and served with a very punchy chilli sauce which you could luckily add to your own tolerance level. The tofu version was similar to the starter and thus similarly great, but the beef alternative (complete with a fried egg hat) was fantastic. The beef was rich and chewy in a very satisfying way.
The aged kimchi stew was the dish with the flavours that were probably furthest from what we’d experienced before. It arrived at the table bubbling hot and enticing you in on a gloomy November day.
There was a steep learning curve as you get used to the mix of sour and spicy, and there were certainly members of the party who struggled with the spice levels, but I was fully converted to its warming charms.
My dish required some self-assembly, Ikea-style. It consisted of a shelf of barbecued chicken thigh, a small bowl of vaguely satay-like sauce (though without the nuts), some dressed salad and large lettuce leaves to envelope the proceeding items in. It was a lot of fun pulling it all together, though lettuce doesn’t have as good load-bearing properties as a tortilla or pancake.
With only four leaves and a whole bunch of chicken though I soon ran out of wraps.
This meant I could actually focus on the smokey and slightly sweet flavours without worrying about any precarious balancing, and I think I actually preferred this stage of the eating.
For the side dishes we went for cucumber kimchi, an odd dish that blow-torched your tastebuds with spice whilst simultaneously cooling them down, and Banchan, two small side dishes that change regularly. On our visit they consisted of potatoes and peppers in a tomatoey sauce, nice flavours though slightly soggy textures, and crisp and vinegary beansprouts.
Despite the busyness (there was a large group to our side who seemed to be exchanging Secret Santa gifts despite it still being the middle of November) the service was relatively speedy, and the staff were good at explaining all the various wrapping and mixing that each dish required. Pricing was also fairly reasonable, with main dishes in the £15-20 range, although with so many enticing treats on offer we predictably ended up collating a fairly substantial bill of £133 for the four of us.
It was definitely worth it, though, for the varied, fresh and unfamiliar array of flavours that were presented to us. Having experienced serious Udon Envy at other table’s dishes there are also still some major areas of the menu left to explore despite our gluttony. It will probably not be long, therefore, until you find me back in the queue willing people to eat their kimchi a little bit quicker. In the contest of new St Albans restaurants this place has definitely Won. Sorry.
