15 Best Korean Foods Every Tourist Must Try

No visit to Korea is complete without a Korean BBQ dinner. Thick pork belly strips (samgyeopsal) or marinated beef short ribs (galbi) are grilled right at your table over charcoal or gas. You wrap the cooked meat in perilla or lettuce leaves with garlic, sliced green onion, and a dab of fermented soybean paste. The result is a perfect bite — smoky, fatty, herbal, and deeply addictive. Pair it with soju or Korean beer and you have the quintessential Korean evening.

Bibimbap means “mixed rice” — a bowl of warm white rice topped with seasoned vegetables, a fried or raw egg, and a generous dollop of gochujang (red pepper paste). The dolsot version arrives in a scorching stone pot that crisps the rice at the bottom into a golden crust called nurungji. Jeonju, two hours south of Seoul, is the undisputed home of the best bibimbap in Korea and worth a day trip specifically for the food scene.

Chewy cylindrical rice cakes simmered in a bright-red, fiery-sweet gochujang sauce — Korea’s most beloved street food and a fixture at pojangmacha (street stalls) across the country. Variations abound: some stalls add fish cake, boiled eggs, or ramen noodles. For a milder version, seek out rose tteokbokki made with cream sauce. If you only try one Korean street food, make it this one.

Thinly sliced beef marinated in a sweet-savoury blend of soy sauce, Asian pear, garlic, and sesame oil, then grilled or stir-fried until tender and caramelised. The pear in the marinade tenderises the meat to melt-in-your-mouth softness. Bulgogi is one of the most approachable Korean dishes for first-timers — no intense heat, just deep umami sweetness. It pairs beautifully with steamed rice and the accompanying banchan.

Sweet potato glass noodles stir-fried with julienned carrots, spinach, mushrooms, and beef in a sesame-soy sauce. Japchae has a satisfying springy texture and a glistening, glossy appearance. It is a staple at Korean celebrations but appears on almost every restaurant menu as a main or side. The vegetarian version without beef is equally delicious and widely available.

Korea’s most iconic stew and the ultimate cold-weather comfort food. Aged, sour kimchi is simmered with pork belly, soft tofu, and gochugaru in a rich, tangy broth until everything melds into something deeply savoury and complex. It arrives bubbling in an earthen pot alongside steamed rice. The sourer the kimchi used, the richer the stew. This is everyday Korean home cooking elevated to an art form.

Silken, uncurdled soft tofu in a fiery red broth with seafood or pork, crowned with a raw egg cracked in at the table. The tofu absorbs the spiced broth beautifully, creating a creamy, warming bowl that is both light and intensely flavourful. Chodang Sundubu Village in Gangneung is the spiritual home of soft tofu in Korea, but every neighbourhood in Seoul has at least one beloved sundubu specialist worth seeking out.

A crispy, pan-fried savoury pancake loaded with green onions and seafood — squid, shrimp, and oysters most commonly. The batter is deliberately thin so the edges become lacy and shatteringly crisp. Koreans say that rainy days call for pajeon and makgeolli (milky rice wine) — the sound of rain is said to resemble batter sizzling in a pan. Pairing both at a traditional market stall on a drizzly afternoon is a quintessential Korea moment.

Often compared to sushi rolls but distinctly Korean — rice seasoned with sesame oil (not vinegar) wrapped in dried seaweed around fillings like tuna, ham, pickled radish, and spinach. Gimbap is Korea’s perfect grab-and-go meal and a staple of Korean convenience stores (CU, GS25, 7-Eleven), which are among the best in the world. The triangular samgak gimbap at convenience stores costs just ₩1,500–2,000 and is filling enough for a quick lunch.

Nicknamed “Army Base Stew,” this dish was born after the Korean War, when surplus US military food — SPAM, hot dogs, baked beans — was combined with Korean staples like kimchi, gochujang, and ramen noodles. The result is a bubbling, deeply savoury stew that tells the story of modern Korean history in every bite. Uijeongbu, north of Seoul, is its spiritual home and has an entire street of dedicated restaurants. A fascinating and genuinely delicious piece of living culinary history.

Spicy stir-fried chicken with sweet potato, cabbage, rice cake, and green onion in a vibrant gochujang marinade, cooked on a large flat griddle at your table. Chuncheon, a scenic lakeside city two hours east of Seoul, is the dish’s birthplace — the main street there has over 60 dakgalbi restaurants in a row. After finishing the chicken, most diners add rice and seaweed flakes to the leftover sauce and stir-fry it into crispy fried rice as a perfect finale.

Thin buckwheat noodles served in an icy cold beef broth (mul naengmyeon) or tossed in a spicy sauce (bibim naengmyeon). The noodles are remarkably long — Koreans traditionally consider cutting them bad luck, though restaurants will snip them with scissors if you ask. This is the ultimate Korean summer dish: refreshing in the most unexpected way. Pyongyang-style naengmyeon, with its subtler, cleaner broth, is considered the gold standard.

Korean shaved ice dessert — finely shaved milk ice (far fluffier than regular crushed ice) piled into a mountain and topped with sweet red bean paste, chewy rice cake, condensed milk, and fresh fruit. The classic patbingsu has ancient origins, but modern cafe versions arrive in strawberry, mango, matcha, and injeolmi (roasted soybean) flavours. Portions are enormous and easily shareable between two or three people. An absolute must on any warm Korean afternoon.

A pan-fried sweet pancake with a molten filling of brown sugar, cinnamon, and crushed peanuts that oozes out when you bite in. Hotteok is the defining street food of Korean winters — vendors appear outside every major market and subway entrance from October through February. The Busan variation, ssiat hotteok from Nampo-dong, adds sunflower and sesame seeds with honey for extra crunch and fragrance. Eating one on a cold night, wrapped in a paper cone, is a pure travel memory.

“Chi” for chicken, “maek” for beer — a combination so beloved it has its own word. Korean fried chicken achieves a uniquely thin, shatteringly crisp double-fried crust in varieties from classic original and sweet soy-garlic to intensely spicy yangnyeom sauce. Order delivery to your accommodation, pick up a bucket at Hangang Park on a warm evening, or settle into a neighbourhood pub for the full experience. Daegu even holds an annual Chicken & Beer Festival each July celebrating this national obsession.