old-market Seoul, where the city's chefs come to shop
The old gateway to the northeast, still run by its markets — produce stalls and the famous herbal-medicine market — while glass towers go up overhead. The reason to come now: Seoul's chefs have started shopping Cheongnyangni and nearby Gyeongdong, so if Korean food and ingredients are your thing, this is the source.
No photos, no star ratings — just what I'd tell a friend. I live in Seoul and these are the places I actually go, 13 of them here.
Open it in the appA real locals' market: retail more than wholesale, always packed, lately full of young food-hunters.
The market Seoul's chefs shop for namul, mushrooms, and Korean ingredients.
Korea's herbal-medicine market: some 70% of the nation's herbs pass through, and the whole street smells of them.
The wild-greens stall that top chefs, Mosu's included, come to for their namul.
Thicker, chewier briquette pork galbi, cheaper than its famous neighbor, and no two-person minimum.
The original of the market's briquette pork-galbi houses: less-sweet marinade, grilled over coals, and all over TV.
Flat-price country cooking: the earthy cheonggukjang over barley rice is the one to get.
Hand-cut kalguksu from a Culinary Class Wars chef, but I'd honestly just go to the home-style spots nearby.
Market fried chicken run as two shops twenty metres apart — put your name in at whichever line is shorter.
Cheap home cooking made TV-famous by its cheonggukjang, in a room full of grandparents.
Haven't been. A tongdak-alley chicken shop, the walk-in pick when Namwon next door has a line.
Seafood tacos in the old market, from the chef behind Asia's first Michelin-starred Mexican kitchen.
Hand-cut kalguksu since 1969; the noodle-cutting's a show, and the cheap cabbage-jeon is the sleeper.
What to order and how to get in — the queue windows, the door moves, the booking that needs a Korean phone number — is in the app.
Bukchon is free, in full, so you can see whether you trust me before paying.