Regional food guide

What to eat in Busan

Written by hand, not generated. Dishes, markets, timing and prices for Busan.

5 dishes 8 food areas See Busan restaurant picks Open the food map

Busan is a port city whose food came out of two things: refugees who moved south during the Korean War, and whatever the boats brought in that morning. Dishes invented here — pork soup rice, wheat noodles — are still the default across the city, and at Jagalchi or Gijang you eat fish landed the same day.

What people eat here

Start with the local defaults

Seomyeon and Busan Station

Dwaeji gukbap (pork soup with rice)

Pork bones and meat simmered into a broth served with rice. You season your own bowl with chive salad, salted shrimp and chilli paste.

Gaya and Gaegeum

Milmyeon (wheat noodles)

Wartime noodles made with wheat flour when buckwheat ran short. Served in half-frozen broth with a spoon of chilli paste stirred in. A summer dish.

Bupyeong Kkangtong Market

Busan fish cake

Made with a high proportion of fish, eaten both as a side dish and as a snack. Sold from market stalls and from bakery-style shops alike.

Jagalchi and Gijang

Kkomjangeo (grilled hagfish)

Hagfish grilled with chilli marinade or simply salted. Almost always an evening dish, eaten with drinks.

Nampo-dong

Ssiat hotteok (seed-filled pancake)

A fried sweet pancake split open and packed with sunflower and other seeds. A street snack that started here.

Where the food is

Markets, streets and harbours

View all (5)

Jagalchi Market

The harbour fish market. Choose your fish downstairs and a restaurant upstairs will prepare and serve it.

Restaurants nearby

Bupyeong Kkangtong Night Market

An alley of food stalls that opens in the evening.

Restaurants nearby

Choryang Bulbaek Street

An alley across from Busan Station lined with bulgogi set-meal diners. Briquette-grilled pork comes with rice and stew, a cheap lunch strip.

Restaurants nearby

Seomyeon Market Pork Soup Alley

Pork-soup-and-rice houses cluster in and around Seomyeon Market behind the department store. Many stay open until dawn; this is the city benchmark for gukbap.

Restaurants nearby

Daebyeon Port, Gijang

Anchovies in spring, snow crab and conger eel in winter, eaten at the harbour.

Restaurants nearby

When to go

Wheat noodles are a May to September dish; in winter the city switches to hot soups.
Gijang anchovies peak in April and May, snow crab and yellowtail from November to February.
Night market stalls generally fill up after 19:00.

Worth knowing

1Upstairs at Jagalchi, a table charge is added on top of the price of the fish. Confirm it before ordering.
2If pork soup is new to you, add the chilli paste a little at a time rather than all at once.
3Parking around Haeundae and Gwangalli is difficult on weekend evenings; subway Line 2 is easier.
4Market stalls move faster with cash than with cards.

What it costs · Per person, roughly

Pork soup rice runs about KRW 9,000-11,000 and wheat noodles KRW 8,000-10,000; a raw fish spread for two is commonly KRW 50,000-80,000.