You’ll often find gamjatang – a spicy pork bone stew with potatoes and vegetables – buried on the menus of Korean restaurants in Sydney, but it’s not often you see a restaurant offering it as the sole menu item. Guk’s owner Jongguk Lee calls gamjatang “the soul food of Koreans”, though, and he goes through 60 kilograms of pork bones each day just to make the broth.

Each pot arrives at the table on its own portable gas cooker and the rich, red broth dusted with perilla seeds. A staff member flicks on the flame. The cauldron bubbles. Diners stir pork bones, wombok, shallots, potatoes, enoki mushrooms and perilla leaves. The herbs and spices in Lee’s soup are a secret, but the result is a deep umami flavour, with the five-hour simmer of the pork neck and spine bones creating a milky broth to bolster the herbal notes. Arrive early or expect to queue.

Good to know: The bokkeumbap fried rice, prepared tableside by staff, is a riveting way to end the meal when added to the leftover broth.

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