I stand on the sidelines, watching sadly

I'm not a fan of most Korean bread, and a lot of bread that's considered "Korean" is actually ripped off from Japan. Many of the "Korean" breads I like come from elsewhere, like "milk bread," with its almost baguette-like interior, or the bready "cheesecake" that also came to Korea via Japan. Now, you could argue that all bread in Korea has foreign origins, and I don't know enough about the history of bread in Korea to rebut you. Maybe that argument is correct. But calling Korea the "kings of bread" seems a little much and a little premature. Meanwhile, enjoy your carbs and your extra pounds, Korea!

Absolute bombshell in the culinary world. South Korea just went to Paris and WON the global baking competition, beating the French at their own game. Korean bakers are taking European styles and adding local twists. The new kings of bread! pic.twitter.com/YE78P8zFym

— Furkan Gözükara (@FurkanGozukara) March 30, 2026

You could also argue that, once the concept of bread came to Korea, the creative possibilities for cultural mingling exploded. Like the Vietnamese with their bánh mì baguettes, Koreans have recipes for bread that also include rice flour; down the street from me, Kim Young-mo Bakery has a weirdly chewy-yet-charming baguette that's partly made with rice flour and covered in black-sesame seeds. Is this baguette in fact Korean, or was it imported from the Japanese? Probably the latter, but when I've bought the baguette, it's always been from Kim Young-mo (Kim, and maybe his sons, too, trained in Paris). Koreans love multi-grain rice, which probably explains why so many Korean sandwich breads are covered in crazy constellations of grain and often shot through with same: the multi-grain concept already existed in some form on the peninsula (think: ogok-bap/오곡밥, or 5-grain rice; there's even ten-grain rice) before multi-grain breads rose into prominence here.

Honestly, I have mixed feelings. All cultures borrow from each other; all cultures appropriate non-native things and make them their own by putting their own local spin on them. This isn't evil: it's only natural and normal, and I wish all of the oversensitive Americans who think cultural appropriation is a sin would just explode into bloody spray and leave the rest of us alone. To that extent, whether Koreans are borrowing and then riffing off bread that has come to Korea via Japan or Europe or the States is irrelevant. But the simplest question for food is: Do you think it tastes good? And sadly, I have to say that, in Korea, bread has been seized upon and, in many cases, buried under the addition of so many local-culture flourishes and curlicues that most of it just doesn't have much appeal to me. Simpler is usually better, which is why I love a good, old-fashioned jambon-beurre or—even better—saucisson-beurre. 

All of which is to say that I don't mind if Koreans keep trying to find new, breakthrough tastes and shapes and whatnot as long as Koreans don't mind that I think 95% of their efforts in this direction are crap. I'm not saying that to be bitter, haughty, or snobbish: Mother Nature herself works in much the same way, relentlessly producing variations of life, most of which prove to be unviable or just more of the same thing, and only a tiny fraction of which will ever prove superior to what has come before. So I hope Koreans do keep innovating, but I also know I'll have to wade through a lot of shit to find the good stuff.