All-you-can eat Korean barbecue restaurant sets opening date in former Highlands theater
Back in March, Top 1 Korean BBQ & Hotpot made a post on Facebook. It simply read, “Coming soon.”
About nine months later, the restaurant’s opening date was announced and it's now, actually, coming soon. Top 1 is expected to host its soft opening on Jan. 12, according to its Facebook page.
The all-you-can-eat eatery is of interest in part because of its location at 1803 Bardstown Road in the Highlands. The restaurant will take over the former home of The Bard's Town, which closed in early 2023.
Plus, Top 1 promises to bring a unique dining experience to Louisville. It will offer an all-you-can-eat option with a two-hour time limit, according to a menu posted online. That costs $35 per adult and $14-19 for kids under the age of 10.
Top 1 is the latest in a string of new Korean restaurants joining the Louisville scene within the last year. The recent openings include Nami, a modern Korean steakhouse by chef Edward Lee that opened in May and Miki's Karaoke Bar, which offers daily karaoke and fast-casual Korean street food, which opened in the Clifton neighborhood in September.
Korean food’s rising popularity has been well documented over the last several years, including data from The Food Institute reporting that interest in Korean cuisine spiked nearly 90% in the 12 months leading up to January 2022.
“All foods have their moment and Korean food is definitely having a moment,” Lee previosuly told the Courier Journal.
He suspects this can be somewhat tied to the rise of Korean pop culture. Netflix now has a robust category for K-dramas, the nickname for TV series such as “Squid Game” produced in South Korea, and K-pop, the shorthand for Korean popular music, has become mainstream on the heels of bands such as BTS and Blackpink, the Courier Journal previously reported.
Top 1's menu specializes in hotpot, in which patrons will order a soup base such as pho beef, mushroom or tomato and their choice of noodles, rice, vegetables, meat, and seafood to be cooked in the broth and shared.
Items include short ribs, beef bulgogi, sliced pork belly, spicy salmon, crab legs, fried tofu, sweet potato, pineapple, sliced pumpkin, several types of mushrooms and seaweed knot. Top 1 also offers beer, wine, soju and sake.
Top 1 will be open 4-10 p.m. Monday-Friday and 2-10 p.m. Saturday-Sunday.
Reach food and dining reporter Amanda Hancock at [email protected]
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Top 1 Korean BBQ & Hotpot to open in January in Highlands
