London’s viral Korean corn dog chain is finally heading south of the river
Bunsik’s crispy corn dogs head south
There are very few foods that have benefited from TikTok quite like the Korean corn dog.
Before social media got hold of them, they were mostly just a wildly popular street snack over in South Korea. Now they’ve become one of those foods people are willing to queue around the block for purely because somebody online stretched melted mozzarella dramatically enough.
Leading that charge in London has been Bunsik, the Korean street food chain that managed to turn deep-fried cheese on a stick into one of the capital’s most reliable queue generators. Since landing in the city back in 2021, the brand has built a cult following around its crunchy corn dogs, fried chicken and grab-and-go comfort food, with permanent crowds outside its branches in Leicester Square and Chinatown pretty much becoming part of the furniture.
Now it’s finally heading south of the river.
Bunsik is opening a brand-new site in Brixton on the 15th of May, taking over the former Holland & Barrett unit at 490 Brixton Road. It marks the chain’s first South London location and feels like the moment where Korean corn dogs officially stop being a trend and become a permanent part of London’s fast-food ecosystem.
Korean corndogs are a more elevated iteration of the well-known American snack. Instead of a straightforward batter, the Korean take uses fermented dough before adding coatings like breadcrumbs, potato cubes or ramen pieces and deep frying the entire thing into something absurdly crunchy. Fillings range from sausage to stretchy mozzarella, while sugar dustings and sauces make the whole thing land somewhere between savoury snack and dessert.
Bunsik’s version has become particularly popular because it fully leans into the spectacle of it all. Massive cheese pulls, crunchy coatings, aggressively photogenic presentation.
The new Brixton branch will serve the full lineup the chain has become known for, including crunchy mozzarella corn dogs, Korean fried chicken, kimbap, tteokbokki and cup bap rice bowls. So even if you’re not fully sold on the idea of eating what is essentially a deep-fried cheese baton, there’s enough there to keep things grounded.
The first 100 customers through the doors before 11am on both the 15th and 16th of May will get a free corn dog, which almost guarantees there’ll be people queueing outside at deeply unreasonable hours. On top of that, all corn dogs will be half price across both opening days.
The discounts then continue through the following week, rotating between different menu items. Tteokbokki gets the 50% treatment on the 16th of May, Korean fried chicken drops to half price on the 17th and 18th of May, while cup bap rice bowls follow on 19th and 20th of May.
At this point, Korean food has completely embedded itself into London’s casual dining scene, but Bunsik’s rise says a lot about where food trends are now.
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