5 K-Dramas To Watch If You Are Missing “The Legend Of Kitchen Soldier”

There is no doubt that in both life and in K-dramas, the fastest way to someone’s heart is through their stomach. If you have been missing Kang Sung Jae (Park Ji Hoon) whipping up feasts in the barracks in “The Legend of Kitchen Soldier,” there are more K-dramas that treat cooking as both metaphor and miracle.

From a tyrant king softened by French fusion cuisine to a young man who understands revenge is a dish best served cold, or a gangster-turned-chef rebuilding his life one wok at a time, here are five more K-dramas to check out!

“Wok of Love”

Seo Poong (Lee Junho) is a star chef at the six-star Giant Hotel, perfecting Chinese cuisine for 10 years until he discovers his fiancée is having an affair with the hotel’s CEO. Framed and fired in one blow, Poong vows revenge and finds himself in a failing Chinese restaurant called Hungry Wok, which lies a street away from the Giant Hotel.

The place is run by Doo Chil Seong (Jang Hyuk), a former loan shark from the Big Dipper gang who took it over after prison just to give his old gang members somewhere honest to work. None of them can actually cook, which is where Poong comes in. Also drawn into the fold is Dan Sae Woo (Jung Ryeo Won), a once-wealthy heiress who loses everything when her father is arrested on her wedding day and who falls into cooking and into a love triangle with both Poong and Chil Sung almost by accident.

Apart from Lee Junho and Jung Ryeo Won’s chemistry, Jang Hyuk’s Doo Chil Seong is endearing as the soft-hearted gangster. Add in revenge, romance, and some seriously drool-worthy wok-fired dishes, and you’ve got a comfort watch.

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“Mr. Queen”

Jang Bong Hwan (Choi Jin Hyuk) is an arrogant modern-day chef working for South Korea’s president at the Blue House until a freak accident sends his soul flying straight into the body of Joseon’s Queen, Kim So Yong (Shin Hae Sun), centuries in the past.

Now stuck as a queen with a man’s mind (and a chef’s ego) intact, Bong Hwan has to navigate palace politics while figuring out how to get back to his own body. So Yong’s husband, King Cheoljong (Kim Jung Hyun), seems like a harmless figurehead king at first but turns out to be hiding plenty of secrets of his own. The real power behind the throne is the Dowager Queen and Jo Hwa Jin (Seol In Ah), the king’s former love and concubine, who add tension to the mix. Through it all, Bong Hwan uses his modern cooking skills to win over the palace, one impossible dish at a time.

Shin Hae Sun’s performance here is the whole show—she plays a man’s swagger and mannerisms so convincingly from inside a queen’s body that you forget who’s “really” talking. If you want a sageuk that’s actually laugh-out-loud funny without losing its emotional gut-punches, this is it.

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“Bon Appétit, Your Majesty”

Yeon Ji Young (Lim Yoona) is a French-trained chef who has just won the biggest culinary competition in Paris when, on her flight home, she’s pulled back through time to the Joseon dynasty. She lands straight in front of King Lee Heon (Lee Chae Min), a ruler so notoriously cruel he’s called a tyrant by his own court. But she saves her own neck by cooking him a dish so good it stuns him into letting her live. From there, Ji Young becomes the palace’s head chef, using modern fusion cooking to slowly chip away at Lee Heon’s cold exterior and uncover the trauma underneath. Standing in her way is the king’s junior consort, who was freed from prison and installed in the palace by the scheming Prince Je San as part of his plot to take the throne.

As Ji Young wins the king’s trust dish by dish, she has to decide whether to change history altogether or find her way back to her own time.

Lim Yoona and Lee Chae Min’s enemies-to-lovers chemistry is electric, and the food cinematography alone will have you ordering takeout mid-episode.

“Itaewon Class”

Park Sae Roy (Park Seo Joon) gets expelled from high school for punching Jang Geun Won (Ahn Bo Hyun), the bullying son of food conglomerate Jangga Group’s founder, Jang Dae Hee (Yoo Jae Myung).

When Geun Won later kills Sae Roy’s father in a hit-and-run and walks free, Sae Roy attacks him and ends up in prison. Seven years later, he opens a small bar-restaurant called DanBam in Itaewon with one goal: build it into an empire big enough to take down Jangga Group for good. Helping him along the way is Jo Yi Seo (Kim Da Mi), a brilliant, blunt social-media influencer who becomes DanBam’s manager and Sae Roy’s biggest believer. And Oh Soo Ah (Kwon Nara), Sae Roy’s childhood love, now working for the very company he’s trying to destroy, gets caught between old loyalty and new ambition.

This one’s less about cooking itself and more about the restaurant as a weapon—it’s a revenge drama with real heart, and Kim Da Mi’s Yi Seo remains one of the most quietly iconic female leads in dramaland. It’s a perfect pick if you want food culture with bite.

“Jewel in the Palace”

Dae Jang Geum (Lee Young Ae) is orphaned as a child and is taken in as a lowly kitchen helper in the royal palace during the Joseon dynasty. Determined to honor her late mother, who once served as a royal cook, Jang Geum works her way up through the brutal hierarchy of the palace kitchens under the guidance of her mentor.

Along the way, she catches the eye of court physician and noble Min Jung Ho (Ji Jin Hee), who becomes both her love interest and her ally. After being framed and exiled, Jang Geum reinvents herself yet again, this time training in traditional medicine, to fight her way back into the palace as Korea’s first female royal physician, eventually earning the title “Dae Jang Geum,” or the Great Jang Geum, from King Jungjong (Im Ho) himself.

This is the OG K-drama food classic. If you’ve never watched it, you owe yourself this one—it’s part cooking drama, part medical drama, part historical epic, and somehow makes all three work.

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Puja Talwar is a Soompi writer with a strong Yoo Yeon Seok and Lee Junho bias. A long time K-drama fan, she loves devising alternate scenarios to the narratives. She has interviewed Lee Min Ho, Gong Yoo, Cha Eun Woo, and Ji Chang Wook to name a few. You can follow her on @puja_talwar7 on Instagram.