Restaurant Review: Jino’s Garden
Words and photos by Gabriel Ward
I recently went to Jino’s Garden with a group of friends. I was the first to arrive, and was shown to a table by a confident waiter who spoke English pretty well. I was well impressed that there were plenty of people seated and eating. I was also struck by the ambiance and felt like I could have been in a restaurant back home. The menu had an extensive range of starters, pastas, and pizzas. I was a little apprehensive, though, because good Italian restaurants will often offer only a select range of dishes that are done very well.
Once my friends arrived, we decided that we would get a range of pastas and pizzas, as well as a couple of salads, and share everything. We got two mozzarella and tomato salads, a basil pesto pasta, a ratatouille, a carbonara, a margherita pizza, a pesto cream pizza and a vegetable pizza. The waiter was really good and did not seem too intimidated by such a large group, which was very reassuring. Despite our large group, we only had to wait about 10 minutes for all of our food to arrive simultaneously, which was really fast given that it was Italian. To me this means that there is a decent amount of staff working in the kitchen or that they have everything pre-prepared. I really hope it is the former.
I sampled most of the dishes, and the ones that I did eat were really good, so my apprehensions were thus allayed. The pizza, in particular, I enjoyed. It had a thin-crust base, and had only around three toppings, exactly how the Italians do it. The pasta was good, as well, and I really enjoyed the basil pesto. Some of our group had never been to Jino’s before and remarked that it was certainly some of the better Italian food they had tasted during their time here in Korea.
Jino’s Garden is not the cheapest place to eat, unfortunately. The price range of the starters and pastas was 13,000 – 17,000 won, and a couple of the pasta dishes were 19,000 won. Pizzas ranged from 15,000 – 17,000 won. They also had a good range of desserts from 5,000 to 8,000 won, but many of them were unavailable when we were there. A few people in our group decided to get a bottle of wine, which cost 46,000 won. The biggest complaint that I can see some people having with Jino’s is that the portion sizes are not huge (though not really small, either), so if you are really hungry and feel like eating a lot, then you should probably go to a Korean restaurant.
On the whole, I would say it is worth going to Jino’s Garden at least once, and it is definitely worth dining there if you are craving some Western food. It is one of the better Italian-style restaurants that I’ve come across in Gwangju, and my friends and I all enjoyed our meal there.
Jino’s Garden is located in the heart of downtown. If you are at the Ministop near German Bar, and you have your back to the river, make a left and look up to the second floor of shops and you will see a Jino’s Garden sign about 10 meters from the Ministop.