Cooking Classes in South Korea

Most Seoul classes follow the same format: three hours or less, four to ten people, an English-speaking instructor, and two or three dishes that you eat at the end. The common menus pair kimchi with a pancake (pajeon) or tteokbokki, or bulgogi with bibimbap and a soup. Some classes start with a walk through a nearby market to buy vegetables and explain fermented pastes like gochujang and doenjang. Prices run from about 60,000 won for a short kimchi class to about 120,000 won for a longer class with a market visit.

Studios cluster around Insadong and Bukchon, where some classes are held in hanok houses, and around Hongdae and Mangwon Market in the west of the city. Museum Kimchikan, a small museum in Insadong devoted to kimchi, runs short kimchi-making sessions alongside its exhibits. For a drinks angle, a few studios teach you to brew makgeolli, the milky rice wine, which you take home to ferment.

Korean Buddhist cooking avoids meat, fish and the five pungent vegetables (garlic, onion, chives, leeks and scallions), and leans on mountain greens, mushrooms, tofu and long-fermented sauces. The Korean Temple Food Center near Anguk Station, across the street from Jogyesa, runs classes taught by monks and temple cooks, with sessions for foreign visitors on some Saturdays. Booking through its website is required and classes fill quickly; fees are low, in the region of 20,000 to 30,000 won.

Templestays at mountain temples include a temple meal and sometimes a cooking session. Baekyangsa in South Jeolla is the most famous temple kitchen in the country, made known abroad by the nun Jeong Kwan. See our temples in South Korea guide for templestays and etiquette.

Seoul’s evening food tours are a quick way to try things you would struggle to order alone. Most begin at Gwangjang Market, with mung bean pancakes (bindaetteok), mayak gimbap and raw beef yukhoe, then move to the pojangmacha tent bars and the printers’ alleys of Euljiro for grilled fish and makgeolli. Tours last three to four hours, include most of the food and drink, and cost about 70,000 to 150,000 won. Other routes cover Korean barbecue in Gangnam or the late-night chicken and beer of Hongdae.

In Busan, Jagalchi is the country’s biggest fish market. Buy live fish, octopus or abalone on the ground floor, and restaurants upstairs prepare it as hoe (sliced raw fish) or a spicy stew for a small table charge. Guided tours of Jagalchi and nearby Gukje Market are available, but it is easy to manage alone.

Jeonju is Korea’s food capital and the home of bibimbap. Cooking schools and experience centres in the Hanok Village teach the Jeonju version, with brass bowls and a dozen toppings, and the city’s makgeolli houses serve kettles of rice wine where every refill brings more side dishes. The traditional wine museum in the Hanok Village holds brewing sessions. The surrounding Jeolla provinces are known for the largest spreads of banchan in Korea, and a long lunch in a local restaurant teaches as much as a class.

Further south, Boseong’s tea plantations offer tea-picking and tasting, and the hills around Suncheon grow tea too. In Andong, the town’s distilled soju and its braised chicken (jjimdak) are the local specialities, and Andong’s soju museum explains how the liquor is made.

On Jeju, the haenyeo, the island’s women free divers, are the stars. Haenyeo’s Kitchen, near Seongsan on the east coast, combines a short play about the divers’ lives with a seafood meal and a talk with the divers themselves. Elsewhere on the island, tangerine-picking farms open in winter, and markets like Dongmun in Jeju City sell black pork, hairtail and abalone porridge. Tea farms in the island’s south and west host tastings.

Book Seoul classes a few days ahead, more in spring and autumn. Check that the class is taught in English, since some sessions marketed to foreigners are run in Korean with translation, and ask what you will cook. Most kitchens can adapt for vegetarians if told in advance; the temple food classes are fully plant-based.