Seongsan, Jeju Western course restaurant for anniversaries: Nansan-ri

We took a trip to Jeju last weekend to celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary. I was trying to think of something special to eat and remembered Nansan-ri Restaurant, which we'd visited before — so we went back.

It's got a great atmosphere and thoughtfully made food, and it's a fine-dining course at good value for money. Nansan-ri Restaurant in Jeju — let me tell you how it went :-)

Nansan-ri Restaurant: address, hours and closing day

• 📍Address: 38 Nansan-ro 41beon-gil, Seongsan-eup, Seogwipo-si, Jeju-do, South Korea
• 🕐Hours: 10:00–21:00
• ✔️Closed every Tuesday

Nansan-ri Restaurant sits in a small village on Jeju, right down to its cozy little garden yard! It looked exactly the same as when we came before.

Our photo from two years ago, when we stopped by Nansan-ri Restaurant for the course meal 🤳 The place felt completely different in summer than it did in winter.

The stylish vine-covered entrance was just as I remembered, so I was happy and took photos before even going in.

Where to park at Nansan-ri Restaurant

The parking lot for Nansan-ri Restaurant is near a blue-roofed building nearby. It's not far from the restaurant and pretty easy to park in.

What the dining room at Nansan-ri Restaurant is like

There's a photo zone at the entrance too, so it's good for taking pictures.

I felt like the wine here would probably be really good, but I wasn't feeling great that day so I skipped it. So disappointing, ugh.

Today's recommended wines were on the main table, and the dark wood-toned tables gave the space a calm, moody atmosphere. Apparently the owner made or chose everything themselves — the floors, the ceiling, the tables, even the dishware. You could really feel the care put into it 🙏

Since we'd arranged a 3-person lunch course in advance, the table was already set this beautifully.

The welcome note put us in a great mood ❤️ Food that feels like Jeju without being boxed in by Jeju clichés, Western food without being boxed in by Western clichés. I couldn't wait!

Here's today's lunch menu. The course runs through pre-meal bread, an egg dish, salad, a potato dish, Jeju black pork steak, pasta, and dessert.

The Nansan-ri Restaurant lunch course, dish by dish

First up, pre-meal bread. The crispy bread comes with a house-made bracken fern (gosari) butter cream to dip it in.

Dip it in the bracken fern butter cream and you get nuttiness and creaminess at the same time. It was really good.

Next is the egg dish. I had no idea an egg could look this luxurious.

Caviar on top of egg — what is this?! Tomato sauce, mushroom cream, and caviar all together.

A Caesar salad with romaine, Caesar dressing, bacon, and parmesan.

Roasted rosemary potatoes, with potato and chili paired together.

The main: Jeju black pork tenderloin steak

The main course: Jeju black pork tenderloin steak.

Being tenderloin from black pork, it was incredibly juicy. The accompanying sauce, a melljeot (salted anchovy) cream sauce, added a fresh Jeju touch too.

Basil pasta for the child and chorizo oil spaghetti

They mentioned the pasta might be spicy, so we ordered basil pasta for our kid instead, and she polished it right off.

Chorizo oil spaghetti. It's the default oil pasta on the menu, and it's a little spicy — personally, this was the best thing we ate today.

The house-made pickles rounded it all out perfectly! And they even gave us a refill when the pasta ran low :)

Leave an anniversary note and the dessert dish changes

This is the final dessert — since I'd left a note ahead of time saying it was our wedding anniversary, they had this thoughtful dish ready for us!

If you've got an occasion coming up, try leaving a note in advance. It makes the meal even more special! The kids loved the panna cotta too.

One last celebratory photo 🤳

And here's a comparison shot from two years ago — that happy meal we had at this Jeju course restaurant. Every time we come back, the kids seem to have grown so much.