A Tokyo-Trained Korean Barbecue Chef Is Opening on Brant Street

A Coming Soon banner is up at 370 Brant Street. On October 28, BurlingtonToday reported that Miga, the Mississauga Korean barbecue restaurant, will open there this winter in the old Coop Wicked Chicken space. Renovations have already started. John You, an owner and the husband of founder Stella Song Kim, told the paper his family has long liked downtown Burlington’s restaurants. When the lease came open, they put in an offer. The aim is late December or January.

Kim’s story is the longer one. Her restaurant’s site says she learned family cooking in Seoul, then spent seven years in Tokyo running Sumibian, a high-end Korean barbecue room known for Wagyu. BurlingtonToday places that Tokyo stretch before her move to Canada. She opened Miga in Mississauga in 2004. The Dundas Street West room is still the original: guests grill thin cuts at the table, with A5 Wagyu from Iwate and halal meats on the board.

You told BurlingtonToday the Mississauga crowd already mixes anniversary nights with ordinary dinners, and that he wants Burlington to meet the place the same way. Some Mississauga staff will likely move over. The paper said the downtown room could add as many as fifteen local jobs once it opens.

The family already tried a second shop. A Vaughan location opened last year and closed in March, when a Metrolinx project took the building down. Burlington is the next try. Through winter, the banner stays up while the grills go in.