La Cantina

La Cantina (Korean: 라칸티나) is a historic Italian restaurant in Jung District, Seoul, South Korea.

[1] It is the oldest still-operating Italian restaurant in South Korea, having been founded in 1967.

[2][3] The business was founded by Lee Jae-du (이재두).

[5] Initially, because Italian food ingredients were so uncommon in Seoul around the time of the restaurant's founding, it had to substitute ingredients that it could not find otherwise.

[5][2] The restaurant had a branch in Gangnam District that closed in 1998, amidst the 1997 Asian financial crisis.