Korean food

A colourful spread of Korean dishes with barbecue, stews and many small side dishes on a table in South Korea

Updated 16 October 2026

Korean Food Guide: What to Eat and How to Order It

A traveller guide to Korean food: barbecue, stews, street food, free banchan side dishes, what beginners should order, drinking culture and table manners.

A charcoal grill loaded with sizzling Korean barbecue meat surrounded by small side dishes on a restaurant table, South Korea

Updated 16 October 2026

Korean BBQ: How It Works, What to Order and Table Etiquette

What happens once the grill arrives, how to work through the side dishes, which cuts to order and how much to expect a table for two will need at minimum.

Rows of street food stalls with steam rising from cooking pans at a covered market in South Korea

Updated 1 October 2026

Korean Street Food: The Markets and What to Eat at Each

Which Korean markets are built for grazing on foot, what to order at each one, and the practical side of paying, timing and hygiene at a street stall.

A stairway down into the stalls of a covered market hall in Busan, South Korea

Updated 29 July 2026

Jagalchi and the Busan Markets: Where the Fish Comes In

The largest fish market in Korea, run largely by women, where you buy something live downstairs and somebody upstairs cooks it while you wait.

Tiled hanok rooftops of the Jeonju traditional village seen from above, South Korea

Updated 11 April 2026

Jeonju: Eight Hundred Hanok and the Home of Bibimbap

The largest surviving hanok district in Korea, a dish the city is credited with inventing, and an alley of makgeolli houses serving food you did not order.

The window of a traditional style cafe looking out onto greenery in Seoul, South Korea

Updated 16 February 2026

Seoul Cafe Culture: A City That Made Coffee an Interior Design Contest

More cafes per square kilometre than almost anywhere on earth, open until midnight, where the room is as much the product as the coffee.