Ordering Food in Restaurants
How to order food in Korea β how restaurants work, how to order without speaking Korean, and how to pay.
How Korean restaurants work
In most Korean restaurants, you sit down and order from a menu β often with pictures β or from a tablet on the table. Water and side dishes called banchan are usually free and are refilled on request. Many restaurants specialise in one dish, so the menu is short and the food is very good at what it does.
Ordering without Korean
Pointing at a picture on the menu works perfectly well, and many restaurants in tourist areas have English menus. Translation apps can translate a menu from a photo in seconds. If you are unsure what to order, look at what other tables are eating and point at it β this is a normal and effective way to order.
Paying
You usually pay at the counter near the door when you leave, not at the table. Some restaurants have a card terminal on the table. Cards are accepted almost everywhere, but small local restaurants may be cash-only, so carry some cash.
Sharing and barbecue
Korean meals are often shared β dishes are placed in the middle of the table for everyone to eat from. At a barbecue restaurant, the staff will usually cook the meat for you, or you cook it yourself on the grill. If you are eating alone, look for restaurants with single-person sets, because some barbecue places have a minimum order of two servings.
Useful words for ordering
Learning a few words makes ordering much easier: 'juseyo' means 'please give me', 'maekju' is beer, 'mul' is water, and 'gyesanseo' means the bill. The phrase list on this site has a full set of restaurant phrases with Korean, romanisation, and English.
Fair prices β know the normal price first
Before you order, check the normal price range: a bowl of gukbap is usually β©10,000β13,000, a kimchi jjigae set β©8,000β10,000, bibimbap β©11,000β14,000. If a menu has no prices, ask first. See the Fair Prices page for the full list and the 'Is this a fair price?' checker.