Background: Although chemotherapy is currently established as a standard treatment in recurrent or metastatic gastric cancer, the role of palliative surgical resection is still controversial. We investigated the survival benefit of surgical resection in patients (pts) with recurrent or metastatic gastric cancer who received systemic chemotherapy. Methods: A retrospective review was conducted on 698 pts who received palliative chemotherapy for recurrent (n = 307) or primary metastatic (n = 391) gastric cancer. Overall survival (OS) of pts who underwent surgical resection followed by chemotherapy was compared to that of pts who received chemotherapy alone. Results: Among 140 pts (primary metastatic: 97, recurrent: 43) with surgical resection, gastrectomy, metastasectomy, and gastrectomy with metastasectomy were performed in 83 (primary metastatic: 81), 44, and 13 pts, respectively. Higher surgical resection rate was observed in pts with young age ( < 70) (p = 0.010), ECOG PS 0 or 1 (p = 0.010), primary metastatic (p < 0.0001), absence of liver metastasis (p = 0.002), and signet ring cell histology (p = 0.002). The median OS of pts who underwent surgical resection before chemotherapy was significantly longer than that of pts who received chemotherapy alone (19 vs. 9 months, p <0.0001). The OS benefit of surgical resection was consistent across subgroups in terms of baseline characteristics including age, ECOG PS, disease status (primary metastatic vs. recurrent), peritoneal metastasis, and first-line chemotherapy regimen (single vs. combination). In multivariate analysis, surgical resection was independently associated with favorable OS (hazard ratio = 0.41, p < 0.0001) along with ≥second-line chemotherapy (p < 0.0001), whereas ECOG PS 2 or 3 (p = 0.013), signet ring cell histology (p < 0.0001), and peritoneal metastasis (p = 0.046) were independent prognostic factors of poor OS. Conclusions: The present study suggests that judicious use of surgical resection before chemotherapy in recurrent or metastatic gastric cancer pts may result in favorable outcome, although large scale phase III trials are essential to establish this treatment approach as a standard practice.