Gwanghwamun sushi restaurant with grilled red seabream cheek: Elephant

Want to enjoy a variety of sushi in a clean, pleasant space in Gwanghwamun? Elephant Sushi Gwanghwamun is located in the newly built Gwanghwamun KT building, making it a great spot for nearby office workers to stop by for lunch or dinner.

*Parking: up to 2 hours supported at the KT building

Exterior & interior vibe

Elephant Sushi Gwanghwamun sits inside the new KT building, so the moment you walk in it feels clean and pleasant overall! Everything's tidy and well organized, so it was comfortable to eat there, and the restaurant was bigger than I expected, with a bar table as well as regular tables. I saw a lot of Gwanghwamun office workers coming in for lunch — it's great whether you're dining solo or with a whole team!

Menu and what we ordered

There were various sushi sets and full meal options, and sized grilled fish too — the kind you'd expect at a Japanese restaurant! The price on the grilled fish was so good that we ordered that too haha 😆

• Elephant B (12 pieces + cold soba) 28,000
• Full salmon plate (10 pieces + cold soba) 35,000
• Salt-grilled red seabream cheek 5,000

Basic side dishes

The simple lineup you'd get at a typical sushi place — black sesame salad and miso-style soup, plus the ginger-soy sauce that pairs with sushi~~👀

Elephant Sushi B & salmon sushi

Now back to the Elephant B set — let me review each piece! Since it came with a wide variety of sushi types, it was perfect for someone like me who wanted to try a bit of everything haha

In order: torched salmon, grilled white fish with sweet cream butter (flounder, I think?), and mackerel. I'm not 100% sure on two of these, but out of them all, the grilled white fish topped with sweet cream butter was truly the best kick, and the mackerel's fishy taste was well tamed too — delicious!

Ankimo (monkfish liver), torched squid, akami (tuna), and red seabream. The ankimo was richly delicious, the tuna melted in my mouth, the torched squid tasted excitingly exotic thanks to the sauce, and the red seabream — need I say more? 🫶🏻

Soy-marinated shrimp, tuna belly, white fish, and futomaki (thick sushi roll). The shrimp was chunky with a great bite, and the tuna belly melted away in my mouth again — so good it hurt to finish. The futomaki was huge, but all the ingredients inside came together so harmoniously — delicious!

This is the cold soba that comes with the set — the noodle texture was decent and the broth had just the right tang, so overall it was solid!

Side dish: salt-grilled red seabream cheek

It felt like a shame to eat only sushi, so we ordered this as a side dish, and for ₩5,000 the value was great! (Total Japanese-restaurant vibes haha)

It came out grilled to a nice golden brown — the outside was lightly crisp and the inside was so moist and tender, I don't know how they grilled it so well 🤤 You could really taste the clean flavor unique to red seabream, and the salt seasoning had soaked in with just the right subtle saltiness. There was also way more meat than I expected!! I thought I'd finished it, but there was still meat left in the nooks and crannies, so I kept picking at it lol. Ordering a warm side like this alongside the sushi made the meal feel so much more filling compared to just eating sushi alone — I highly recommend getting it as a side!!!

Final thoughts

Elephant Sushi is a great spot to visit when you want to enjoy a variety of sushi in a clean, pleasant space in Gwanghwamun! The B set in particular isn't just a basic sushi lineup — it comes with quite a nice selection of fish, so it's great for a day you want something a bit more special than the usual sushi 🤍 Whether it's a Gwanghwamun date or a clean sushi meal for lunch or dinner with nearby coworkers, Elephant Sushi Gwanghwamun is well worth a visit!