Regional food guide

What to eat in Seoul

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

5 dishes 7 food areas See Seoul restaurant picks Open the food map

Seoul stacks six centuries of capital-city cooking, postwar alley diners, and food from every corner of the world into one city. What makes it unusual is the range: you can eat at a restaurant that has been open for a century and at a place that opened last month on the same afternoon.

What people eat here

Start with the local defaults

Jongno and Euljiro

Seolleongtang (ox bone soup)

Beef bones simmered for hours into a milky broth. It arrives unseasoned, so you salt it and add spring onion yourself at the table.

Euljiro and Mapo

Pyeongyang naengmyeon (cold buckwheat noodles)

Buckwheat noodles in a deliberately restrained beef broth. Locals add only a drop of vinegar or mustard and drink the broth as it is.

Mapo and Wangsimni

Doeji galbi (marinated pork ribs)

Pork ribs marinated in soy sauce and grilled over charcoal. The meal usually ends with cold noodles or soybean paste stew rather than rice.

Gwangjang Market

Bindaetteok (mung bean pancake)

Mung beans ground and fried thick in oil. Eaten at a market counter with makgeolli rice wine.

Euljiro 3-ga

Nogari with draft beer

Dried baby pollack grilled over briquettes, eaten as a beer snack. After dark the alley fills with folding tables on the pavement.

Where the food is

Markets, streets and harbours

View all (6)

Gwangjang Market

A century-old market of pancake, raw beef and kimbap stalls where you sit and eat on the spot.

Restaurants nearby

Euljiro old-shop alleys

Old bars and rice-and-side-dish diners tucked between print shops. Busiest in the evening.

Restaurants nearby

Sindang-dong Tteokbokki Town

An alley behind Sindang Station devoted to tabletop tteokbokki. You simmer rice cakes with noodles and egg at the table and finish with fried rice in the leftover sauce.

Restaurants nearby

Jangchung-dong Jokbal Street

Decades-old braised pig trotter houses stand side by side on the main road in front of Jangchung Arena. Order front or hind leg and eat it with salted shrimp; this is where Seoul jokbal started.

Restaurants nearby

Mapo and Gongdeok

A run of charcoal grill houses specialising in marinated pork.

Restaurants nearby

Mangwon Market

A neighbourhood market for street snacks — fritters, sweet-and-spicy fried chicken — eaten while walking.

Restaurants nearby

When to go

Well-known old restaurants have their longest queues on weekdays between 12:00 and 13:00. Before 11:30 or after 14:00 is easier.
Cold buckwheat noodles draw long summer queues (June to August); winter is the quiet season for them.
Traditional markets have many stalls closed on Sundays and on the main holidays.

Worth knowing

1Some long-running shops are cash only, and a few will not seat a single diner. Worth checking before you go alone.
2Popular restaurants often use waitlist apps, so you can join the queue remotely.
3Downtown parking is scarce and expensive; the subway plus a short walk is usually faster.
4Grill houses commonly take orders from two portions up.

What it costs · Per person, roughly

A bowl of soup or noodles runs about KRW 9,000-12,000, and grilled pork is roughly KRW 15,000-20,000 per person.