Spicy Grill

In the heart of Golders Green, Spicy Grill is a restaurant for meat-lovers over anyone else. We first came to this Korean BBQ spot during our student days, to split platters of tender rib-eye and moreish spicy pork belly, wipe brows from the punchy ddukbokki, and agree to return the same week. Not a tonne has changed since then, and that’s a good thing. 

photo credit: Aleksandra Boruch

photo credit: Aleksandra Boruch

photo credit: Aleksandra Boruch

Use Spicy Grill as it’s set up to be: as a comfortable, carnivores’ hangout that won’t break the bank. The generic, wood-heavy room can fit groups big and bigger and is often filled with every generation. It’s one of those living room-like restaurants where manners are fluid and many hands rule. Eager chopsticks snap at banchan, backseat MasterChefs advise on the grill, and matriarchal types wield meat-cutting scissors like an extension of their own hands. Service isn’t always as attentive as it could be, so this kind of attitude goes a long way.

photo credit: Aleksandra Boruch

photo credit: Aleksandra Boruch

photo credit: Aleksandra Boruch

photo credit: Aleksandra Boruch

photo credit: Aleksandra Boruch

Spicy Grill’s menu is almost as big as the groups it attracts. There are 50-something items, and the KFC—crisp, tender, and on the bone—is a cut above the rest. Other classics, like a thick seafood pancake or japchae, are just fine. Instead focus on the BBQ. The LA galbi is tender and the marinade savoury. Packed into a lettuce leaf with a smear of ssamjang, it makes for a dreamy, crunching mouthful while you let someone else take the reins on conversation.

Food Rundown

photo credit: Aleksandra Boruch

Banchan

An order of all the little side dishes is always recommended at a KBBQ spot and it’s the same here. Every variety of kimchi is good and suitably punchy, from the cabbage to the radish to the cucumber. Nothing cuts through a fried or meat-heavy meal like a small supporting cast of vegetables.

photo credit: Aleksandra Boruch

Seafood Pancake

The good news is that this haemul pajeon is generously filled with plump prawns, tender slices of squid, bouncing octopus tentacles, and plenty of spring onion. The bad news is that it’s a little on the thick and cloying side for us. If it was thinner and crispier, it would be perfect.

photo credit: Aleksandra Boruch

Mixed BBQ

This platter of LA galbi, pork belly, and chicken will see you right. We’d recommend asking for both the pork and the chicken to come marinated in spicy sauce, and get some lettuce and spring onion on the side. The short rib is particularly good.