Korean Cuisine

What to order in Seoul, from the barbecue grill to the noodle house: our guide to the dishes of the Korean table, and the restaurants in our guide where you can taste them.

The Korean table

A Korean meal is shared. Rice and a bowl of soup or stew are set before each person; in the middle of the table come the banchan, small side dishes of kimchi, seasoned vegetables, braised tofu or anchovies, refilled when they run out. You eat rice and soup with a spoon, the rest with metal chopsticks, and you help yourself from every dish.

Kimchi and banchan

Kimchi, vegetables fermented with salt, chilli, garlic and fish sauce, comes in hundreds of forms: napa cabbage, radish cubes, cucumber, spring onion. Each autumn families gather to make the winter’s supply, a custom called kimjang, which UNESCO inscribed on its list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity in 2013. In Gwangjang Market you will see banchan sold by the scoop from steel trays.

Every Korean meal is a table of small dishes around rice and soup: learn the banchan, and the rest follows.

Rice, soup and jang

Behind Korean flavour stand the jang: doenjang (fermented soybean paste), ganjang (soy sauce) and gochujang (red chilli paste). The knowledge and practices of jang-making were added to UNESCO’s intangible-heritage list in 2024. Bibimbap, rice topped with seasoned vegetables, egg and gochujang, is mixed at the table; Jeonju, a day trip by KTX, is its most famous home.

Naengmyeon

Naengmyeon are cold buckwheat noodles. Mul-naengmyeon come in an icy beef broth, bibim-naengmyeon dressed with chilli; scissors are offered to cut the long noodles. Woo Lae Oak and Pildong Myeonok, both Bib Gourmands, are among Seoul’s best-known houses; Mijin, near Jonggak, serves buckwheat noodles with a cold dipping broth.

Gomtang and seolleongtang

Gomtang and seolleongtang are long-simmered beef and bone soups, clear or milky white, served with rice and kimchi and salted at the table to taste. Mapo Ok, a Bib Gourmand, is the classic place to try seolleongtang.

Barbecue and bulgogi

At a barbecue restaurant the meat is grilled at your table: samgyeopsal (pork belly) or marinated galbi (ribs), wrapped in lettuce with garlic, chilli and ssamjang. Bulgogi, thin slices of marinated beef, is cooked on a domed grill or in its own broth; Yukjeon Hoekwan and Woo Lae Oak are Bib Gourmands for it.

Mandu and kalguksu

Mandu are dumplings, steamed, boiled or fried; Gaeseong Mandu Koong in Insadong and Jaha Son Mandu in Buam-dong, both Bib Gourmands, make them by hand. Kalguksu are knife-cut wheat noodles in a hot broth: Hwangsaengga Kalguksu in Bukchon is another Bib.

Market food

At Gwangjang Market you sit at the counter for bindaetteok, mung-bean pancakes ground and fried to order, and mayak gimbap, little rolls of rice and seaweed. Namdaemun Market has its alley of kalguksu stalls and braised cutlassfish.

The starred tables

For Korean cooking at its most refined, the 2026 MICHELIN Guide Seoul gives Mingles Three Stars, and La Yeon at The Shilla and Kwonsooksoo Two; Onjium, JUEUN, Bicena and Eatanic Garden hold One.

Our advice: order more banchan than you think you need, never pour your own drink when dining with Koreans (pour for others), and save naengmyeon for a hot day.