Maru Korean Steakhouse

 3 June 2026

 

MARU KOREAN STEAKHOUSE

107 Bree Street, Cape Town

 

While we were waiting for the dessert menu, Von-Mari googled popular Korean desserts. Sweetened red bean paste appears to be a key ingredient. Von-Mari doesn’t care for beans in any form, much less in her sweet treats. 

 

We concluded that South-Korea is off the travel bucket list and that we’d have to make do with Maru Koran Steakhouse as the closest facsimile.

 

It was a fun date night at a joint we’d heard good things about from two separate sources, opting to book for the early slot of 18h00 to 20h30 (the second slot is 20h30 to later) on a night when a very unpleasantly strong and icy wind terrorised Cape Town. Notwithstanding this challenge, the restaurant was quite busy that early. Maybe Capetonians are more tolerant of inclement weather now, despite the reputation of being stay-at-homes when conditions are less than favourable.

 

Our previous visit to the premises had been many moons ago when it housed La Parada, a very noisy and not quite satisfactory experience. Maru is much more stylishly appointed with mostly banquette seating and bentwood chairs and a couple of large, U-shaped booths, elegant bar and open kitchen tucked away in a corner. The acoustics are good, with no overbearing crowd noise and even the EDM from the loudspeaker above our corner table, with a good view over the room, wasn’t excessively intrusive.

 

The principal menu is quite large, physically and in content, but we were there for the Winter set menu priced at a very reasonable R349,00 pp.

There are also more expensive and expansive beef and chicken set menus, plus the a la carte offerings but our one source had recommended the Winter set menu as being both budget friendly and plentiful and we stuck to our guns despite the server’s best efforts to punt the other set menus.

 

The restaurant is server heavy, with at least three different people attending to us before we ordered food. 

 

Cocktails are rather expensive, as is a bottle of San Pellegrino water (R89), but we were in a mood to splurge as if we were in South-Korea, ignoring the exchange rate. 

 

Von-Mari ordered the strawberry soda pop (155)

and I had the Gangnam spritz (R165).  

 

The quite sweet soda pop had bubble tea like bubbles that were a fun factor.  The Gangnam spritz is based on Aperol, looked like orange pop and kinda tasted like orange pop. It won’t become my favourite cocktail.

 

The gimbap welcoming dish with crunchy seaweed tubes filled with yummy things, is like a pastry free spring roll, I guess, and a tasty opening salvo to set the palate salivating for the goodness to come.

 

I really liked the Korean fried chicken, served in a bucket, no less, with the lightest yet crispiest cocoon of batter around succulent chicken. Von-Mari thought  the batter was too oily. The quantity and size of the portions were substantive and it really put KFC (the Colonel’s version) into unflattering perspective. Of the four accompanying sauces, I preferred the Gochujong BBQ sauce, Von-Mari’s least favourite, because it had some zing where the other sauces, tasty as they were, lacked charisma.

 

Maru follows the practice of fine dining restaurants, by having the server carefully explaining each dish and its accompaniments, seeing as how we can’t read a menu description and have no clue about Korean cuisine. Still, it’s nice to be better informed.

Not only did we get the patter for the KBBQ meat feast (shurely shome mishtake) of grassfed Chuck Eye and Galbi-marinated short rib,  but also a show and tell presentation of our choices before they were cooked. For the first time in my life, I had visual specificity of the size of a 50g cube of steak. I’ve seen larger sub-atomic particles.

 

The meat feast (yeah, I’m still chuckling) is served with a single button mushroom and a small plug of unseasoned glutenous rice that tastes of the void. One also gets a bowl of lettuce leaves, a small bowl of spicy ssmang-jang sauce and larger bowls of pickled onions, mini daikon, beetroot and kimchi.

One builds each mouthful by combining meat and vegetable elements in a lettuce leaf to make a small “wrap.” Very yummy, with the combination of freshness, flavours and perfectly cooked meat though also a tad messy. It’s a fun experience and though the meat seemed to be in  ridiculously short supply, the meat feast was cumulatively quite filling.

 

Von- Mari, having had an elegant sufficiency by then, skipped the maeun-tang seafood stew and rice.  I ate almost all of the stew, barring the small spoonful Von-Mari tasted, and one and half portions of rice.  The flavour of the stew is interesting as it’s not as salty as one would expect from an anchovy broth and lacks bold depth of flavour yet is also rich in delightful chilli heat. The seafood and other bits and bob were perfectly cooked and I was well happy with the dish.

If I were to rate the three courses, the stew would probably be number one, the chicken second and the meat third.

 

Only the Maru Snow dessert contains red bean, in custard form, and my guess is that the other desserts are simply a local chef’s ideas with Korean flavours and elements; they don’t seem to be traditional, anyway.

 

I wasn’t really hungry anymore but decided to try the black sesame cheesecake (R135).

Von-Mari was happy with the salted caramel ice cream that was included in the price of the meal.

 

I suppose it’s a fridge cheesecake with the characteristic creamy texture and it was okay. The yuzu drops added a bit of zest,  the peanut nougatine brought crunchy texture and delightful flavour (like the peanut shaped sweets I knew as a much younger person) and both the milk chocolate ganache and chocolate sorbet were lovely and richly chocolatey. Von-Mari mixed the ganache into her ice cream and declared that this combination, in large quantity would be one of her best desserts ever. I gave up the ganache because that kind of chocolate ain’t my thing.

 

The cheesecake itself was the weakest link in the dessert and it’s not something I’d ever order again.

 

The bill, before tip, came to R1 242,00. I’d paid a R200,00 deposit when making the booking.

 

We quite liked the look and feel of Maru and, even if drinks are expensive, the Winter set menu is very good value for money for a solid meal. The service was efficient and cheerful.

 

We discussed the experience while we waited for the dessert and, like one friend said, we also concluded, good as the experience was, that we’d now seen what Maru offers, enjoyed it but wasn’t totally blown away and would probably not return of our own volition. That doesn’t mean, however, that I wouldn’t recommend it. If you like Korean food, or want to dip a toe in the water, head to Maru.