South Korea Travel Guide

Thick-cut pork belly grilled on a charcoal grill built into your table, wrapped in perilla leaves with raw garlic, kimchi and ssamjang paste — the most interactive meal in Asia. A Korean BBQ dinner that lasts three hours with soju and side dishes is the essential Seoul social experience.

Rice mixed with colourful vegetables, beef, egg and gochujang (red chilli paste) in a stone pot that keeps sizzling at the table — each ingredient visible before you mix it into a riot of flavour and texture. Jeonju's version with 30 toppings and a dolsot stone pot is the most complex.

Chewy rice cake cylinders in a gochujang-based sauce, found at every street cart from Seoul to Busan — spicy, sticky and completely addictive. The modern version includes fish cakes and boiled eggs; the Gwangjang Market version uses a milder sauce that shows you why the original was a royal court snack.

Korea's greatest contribution to casual dining — double-fried chicken (crisped to an audible crunch) served with iced beer (maekju) or soju. The yangnyeom (sweet-spicy glazed) and honey-butter variants are Korea's most obsessed-over food trend, and every neighbourhood has its own best spot.

Korea's preserved fermented cabbage is the bedrock of the cuisine — each family has a different recipe; restaurants serve 10–15 free side dishes (banchan) with every meal including multiple kimchi varieties. A Korean meal without banchan is not a Korean meal.