Food & Cafés: What to Eat & Café Etiquette

For a lot of people, the food is the whole reason to come to Korea. This is how to order without second-guessing yourself, eat like you belong at the table, and track down the cafés and desserts that so much of Korean social life revolves around.

What to order first

Start with the classics. Past those, street food is a whole other trail: tteokbokki, gimbap, and hotteok straight off a cart.

Nearly every meal arrives with banchan - small shared side dishes that keep getting refilled for free - and a bowl of rice and soup usually rounds things out. Don't overlook convenience stores either. With hot ramyeon stations, gimbap, and lunchboxes, they're a real budget option, not just a snack stop.

• Banchan side dishes come free and refillable - just ask for more.
• Convenience stores (CU, GS25, 7-Eleven) make a cheap, surprisingly good fallback at almost any hour.

A few dishes to try first.

Dish	What it is
Bibimbap	Rice with vegetables and gochujang
Korean BBQ	Grill your own pork or beef at the table
Bulgogi	Sweet-savoury marinated beef
Kimchi jjigae	A warming kimchi stew
Tteokbokki	Chewy rice cakes in a spicy sauce

Dining etiquette

Let the eldest person start first, and pour drinks for the people around you rather than your own glass, holding the bottle with two hands as a mark of respect. One thing to avoid: never leave your chopsticks standing upright in a bowl of rice, since it echoes a funeral rite.

Sharing is just how it works - stews and grills come as communal dishes everyone digs into. Slurp away and eat with gusto, that's all fine. There's no tipping, and more often than not you settle up at the counter on your way out rather than at the table.

• Fill other people's glasses, not your own, and take a pour from an elder with both hands.
• Never leave chopsticks standing upright in rice.

Spice, vegetarian, and halal

Korean food runs the whole way from mild to seriously spicy. If heat isn't your thing, "안 맵게 해주세요" (an maepge haejuseyo) means please make it not spicy, and it works said aloud or held up on a screen. The gentle staples are always there too - bulgogi, galbitang, gimbap. The ordering and kiosks guide collects handy phrases like this for pointing and asking.

Vegetarian and vegan food is on the rise, especially in the cities, but watch out: anchovy and meat sneak into a lot of stocks and side dishes, so temple-food restaurants and dedicated vegan cafés are your safest bet. For halal, the widest choice is around the mosque in Seoul's Itaewon, and more restaurants are getting certified or going Muslim-friendly every year.

• Two phrases worth memorising: "안 맵게" (an maepge) for less spice, "고기 빼고" (gogi ppaego) for no meat.
• In the cities, searching vegan or halal in Naver Map (see Essential Apps) turns up certified spots.

Café and dessert culture

Cafés sit right at the heart of Korean social life, and there can't be many countries with more of them per block. Coffee is only the start. You'll find elaborate dessert cafés, themed spaces, rooftop and hanok (traditional house) cafés, and buzzy pop-ups that visitors from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan will happily build a whole day around.

Order a bingsu (shaved-ice dessert), some Korean pastries, and a specialty coffee while you're at it. Plenty of cafés double as quiet workspaces and stay open late, which makes them easy places to meet up. What you pay swings a long way between a budget chain and one of the big names, and What Things Cost puts the two ends side by side.

• Dessert and themed cafés are destinations in their own right - build a stop around one.
• Hanok cafés in areas like Bukchon give you tradition and a great photo in one go.

By Hyouk Seo · Last updated: 2026-08-19