On Oct. 2, a gukbap restaurant on Eoulmadang-ro in Seoul’s Hongdae district was packed with customers during lunchtime, many of whom were foreign tourists. Among them were a Western couple, Southeast Asian women wearing hijabs, and men speaking in Chinese. Inside, foreign languages such as Chinese, English, and French filled the air, often louder than Korean. The restaurant’s kiosk offered menus in four languages: Korean, English, Japanese, and both simplified and traditional Chinese.
Staff noted that foreign customers often outnumber locals during quieter hours. A nearby café worker said foreign tourists frequently make up more than half of the customers at surrounding restaurants. Gukbap, a traditional Korean soup with rice, has become a favorite among young international tourists, surpassing previously popular dishes like kimchi, bulgogi, and samgye-tang.
BC Card data released on Oct. 5 showed gukbap made its debut in the top 10 most popular foods among foreign tourists in 2024, ranking 7th after being unranked in 2022. Korean fried chicken, Korean-Chinese cuisine, and gejang took the top three spots. The growing popularity of gukbap is linked to the influence of Korean dramas, films, and K-pop idols, with tourists eager to try dishes like gomguk, often featured in the media.
Many younger tourists are inspired by Korean dramas like My Mister, SKY Castle, and Our Blues, as well as films like The Yellow Sea and Nameless Gangster. Kim, a tour guide for Indonesian tourists, said Muslim visitors, who avoid pork for religious reasons, tend to order seolleongtang or galbi-tang instead of dwaeji-gukbap or sundae-gukbap.
Foreign visitors are also traveling to regions like Busan, known for dwaeji-gukbap, to try local versions of the dish. BC Card data shows foreign tourists who used domestic transportation services spent 50% more at restaurants serving gukbap compared to those who didn’t travel. A Singaporean woman at a dwaeji-gukbap restaurant near Hongdae said she wanted to try the dish after seeing NewJeans members eating it during a trip to Busan. “Though I couldn’t make it to Busan, I’m happy to try it here in Seoul,” she said.
Though gukbap may be unfamiliar to Western diners, its key component—meat broth—is universal. A German couple likened seolleongtang’s broth to French consommé, adding that rice enhanced the flavor by thickening the broth and adding a touch of sweetness.
Gukbap is also gaining popularity outside of Korea. Okdongsik, a restaurant known for modernizing dwaeji-gukbap into dwaeji-gomtang, successfully opened in New York in 2022. The New York Times included Okdongsik’s dwaeji-gomtang on its “Top 8 New York City Dishes of 2023″ list, describing it as “the kind of soup you could eat every day.”
Food columnist Park Jeong-bae said the global rise of gomtang shows a deeper understanding of Korean cuisine. “While dishes like bulgogi, galbi, and samgye-tang are usually reserved for special occasions, gomtang is part of everyday life in Korea,” he said. “It’s real Korean food.”
