Korean Food Guide: What to Eat & Order

Korean food is generous, social and built for sharing, and it is one of the best reasons to make the trip. This is a cuisine of contrasts: fire and ferment, grilled meat and cool pickles, comforting stews and crunchy street snacks, all arriving at once in a happy sprawl of small dishes. You do not order a single plate and eat it alone; you gather a table, cook and share, and let the free side dishes keep coming. Come hungry, come curious, and this guide will help you order like you have done it before.

The table, and the free banchan

The first thing that surprises visitors is how much food arrives unbidden. Almost every meal comes with banchan, a spread of small shared side dishes: several kinds of kimchi, seasoned spinach and beansprouts, pickled radish, fish cake, marinated tofu and more, refilled free of charge. They are not a starter to finish before the main; they are companions to the rice and the centrepiece dish, meant to be picked at throughout the meal.

Rice and soup usually anchor the table, and the main event, whether a grill, a stew or a plate of noodles, sits in the middle to share. Understanding this rhythm is half the battle. You are not ordering one dish per person; you are building a table together.

Korean barbecue, the main event

If you try one thing, make it Korean barbecue. You sit at a table with a grill set into it, order raw meat by the cut, and cook it yourself: samgyeopsal (thick pork belly), galbi (marinated short rib), or bulgogi (sweet soy-marinated beef). As it sizzles, you wrap bites in lettuce leaves with garlic, a smear of ssamjang paste and a little kimchi, and eat the whole parcel in one go.

It is interactive, unhurried and deeply fun, usually washed down with soju or beer. The staff will often help with the grilling if you look lost, and the endless banchan and a bowl of cold noodles or stew round out the feast. No first trip to Korea is complete without a barbecue night.

Diners grilling marbled pork belly over a tabletop charcoal grill at a Korean barbecue restaurant in South Korea

Stews, soups and rice bowls

Beyond the grill lies Korea’s world of comforting one-pot cooking. Kimchi jjigae is a tangy, spicy stew of aged kimchi and pork; doenjang jjigae is an earthy soybean-paste stew; sundubu jjigae is a bubbling pot of silken tofu you crack a raw egg into. Samgyetang, a whole young chicken stuffed with rice and ginseng in a milky broth, is the summer restorative.

For a lighter meal, bibimbap is the famous bowl of rice topped with seasoned vegetables, an egg and a spoon of chilli paste that you mix together yourself. Gimbap, seaweed-wrapped rice rolls, and kalguksu, hand-cut noodle soup, are everyday favourites. These dishes are the soul of home cooking, warming and cheap, and found on every corner.

Find the stalls locals queue atA market food tour takes the guesswork out and points you to the dishes worth crossing town for

Street food and market snacks

Korea’s street food is a cuisine in itself, and the markets are its stage. Look for tteokbokki, chewy rice cakes in a sweet-spicy red sauce, the nation’s favourite snack; hotteok, a griddled pancake oozing brown sugar and nuts; gimmari and twigim, crunchy fried rolls and fritters; and odeng, fish-cake skewers in warm broth on cold days.

At a proper market like Seoul’s Gwangjang or Busan’s Gukje, you can eat a whole progressive dinner from stall to stall: mung-bean pancakes, fresh gimbap, blood sausage, and a paper cup of makgeolli rice wine to wash it down. And no late night is complete without chimaek, Korean fried chicken and beer, double-fried to a shattering crunch and glazed in soy-garlic or sweet-spicy sauce.

Drinking culture and etiquette

Korea takes its drinking seriously and sociably. Soju, a clear, mildly sweet spirit, is the national drink, often shared over barbecue; makgeolli, a cloudy, lightly fizzy rice wine, pairs with pancakes on a rainy day; and craft beer has boomed in the cities. Drinking is communal, and a few customs matter: pour for others, not yourself, hold the bottle with two hands when serving an elder, and turn slightly away when you drink in front of someone senior.

A little table etiquette goes a long way anywhere. Use two hands to receive a dish or a drink from someone older, do not stand your chopsticks upright in a bowl of rice, and wait for the eldest to lift their spoon first at a formal meal. None of it is a test; a small effort is warmly received.

A street-food market stall serving spicy tteokbokki rice cakes and fried snacks to customers in South Korea

The short version

Eat a Korean barbecue at least once, order a bubbling stew and a bibimbap, and graze a market from stall to stall for the street food. Let the free banchan keep the table full, try soju or makgeolli the local way by pouring for your neighbour, and finish a night with fried chicken and beer. Ask if a dish is spicy when you need to, use two hands with your elders, and above all come hungry. In Korea the meal is the main event, and the table is where the trip really happens. Read the Seoul and Busan guides to know where to point your appetite.

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Common questions

What food should a first-timer try in Korea?

Start with Korean barbecue, a bowl of bibimbap, some tteokbokki spicy rice cakes from a street cart, a comforting stew like kimchi jjigae, and of course kimchi itself. Add fried chicken with beer, gimbap seaweed rice rolls, and a market snack like hotteok. These cover the range from grill to street to home cooking.

Is Korean food very spicy?

Some of it is, but plenty is not. Dishes built on gochujang chilli paste or gochugaru chilli flakes can be fiery, but many staples, from grilled meat and soy-marinated bulgogi to mild soups, dumplings and seafood, are gentle. You can eat very well in Korea without much heat if you ask, and side dishes let you balance the spice.

What are the free side dishes in Korea?

They are called banchan, small shared plates of kimchi, pickles, seasoned vegetables, beansprouts and more that come free with almost every meal and are refilled at no charge. They are meant to be shared around the table alongside the main dish and rice, not eaten as a starter.

Is it easy to eat vegetarian or find familiar food in Korea?

It is getting easier, especially in Seoul and Busan, though many Korean dishes use fish sauce, anchovy or meat stock even when they look vegetable-based, so ask if you are strict. Temple cuisine, bibimbap without meat, and vegetable pancakes are good options, and international food is easy to find in the cities.

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