How to Order Food in Korea Without Speaking Korean

You don't need Korean to eat well in Korea. You just need to know how the system works — and one very useful phrase.

Walking into a Korean restaurant when you can't read the menu can feel intimidating. But here's the truth: millions of visitors eat their way through Korea every year with zero Korean skills, and they do just fine. The food ordering system here is actually quite foreigner-friendly once you understand a few things. This guide will walk you through exactly what to expect.

Street food stall, Seoul

Learn One Phrase — Just One

If you pick up nothing else before your trip, make it this: 이거 주세요 (i-geo ju-se-yo), which means "This one, please." Point at the menu, point at what someone nearby is eating, or point at the plastic food display outside — then say those four syllables. That's genuinely all you need for most orders at restaurants, pojangmacha (포장마차, street food stalls), and market vendors alike.

A few other phrases that come in handy: 여기요! (yeo-gi-yo, "Excuse me!") to flag down a server, and 감사합니다 (gam-sa-ham-ni-da, "Thank you"). Koreans are warm toward visitors who make even a small effort with the language.

Personal Take

I've lived abroad myself, and the one thing I found most useful wasn't carrying a phrasebook — it was just learning a handful of short, practical phrases. "This one" and "that one" really do get you surprisingly far. When I think about it from a visitor's perspective, the beauty of Korean food culture is that so much of it is visual. You can walk up to a market stall, point at something bubbling in a pot, say 이거 주세요, and seconds later you're eating. And honestly? Sometimes the best approach is to just order something you can't identify, eat it, enjoy it, and look up what it was afterward. That's part of the adventure.

How Korean Restaurants Actually Work

A few things about Korean dining that catch first-timers off guard — and that make ordering much easier once you know them.

Kiosks are everywhere. Fast food spots, Korean BBQ chains, and many cafés now use self-ordering kiosks. Look for a language button or globe icon — many have English. You tap, select, pay. No conversation required.

There's a call button on the table. Unlike in Western restaurants, servers in Korea don't hover or check on you. Instead, there's usually a small button on the wall or table — press it once when you need something. It's completely normal and expected.

Cutlery is in a drawer. Many Korean restaurants keep spoons, chopsticks, and napkins in a hidden drawer on the side of your table. Don't panic if there's nothing on the table when you sit down — just check the drawer.

You pay at the counter, not at the table. When you're done eating, take your receipt to the cashier near the exit. No one will bring the bill to you — that's just how it works here.

Key Info

Tipping is not part of Korean dining culture — just pay the bill amount and go. Side dishes (banchan, 반찬) are free and refillable. If you see a sign that says "셀프 (self)," it means you can help yourself to more at a communal station.

Your Phone Is Your Best Tool

Two apps worth downloading before you leave: Papago (by Naver) and Google Translate. For Korean specifically, Papago tends to win — it handles menu translations more accurately, understands food-specific terms, and has a conversation mode that lets two people speak into the same phone and see real-time translations on screen. Google Translate's camera mode once translated 삼겹살 (samgyeopsal, grilled pork belly) as "three layers of flesh" — not exactly helpful at a restaurant counter.

That said, Google Translate is still worth having as a backup, especially if you need to handle other languages too. Download both, and enable offline Korean language packs on each before your flight — restaurant Wi-Fi isn't always reliable.

Tip

Papago has a "Food Info" feature built into its image translation mode. Point your camera at a Korean menu, tap "select all," and you'll see a Food Info tab with dish explanations tailored for tourists — not just a raw translation. It was developed in partnership with the Korea Tourism Organization and is genuinely useful.

Tourist Areas vs. Local Spots

This holds true pretty much everywhere in the world: where tourists go, some English follows. Areas like Myeongdong (명동), Insadong (인사동), Hongdae (홍대), and the neighborhoods around Gyeongbokgung Palace (경복궁) — which you can read more about in our Gyeongbokgung visitor guide — tend to have English menus, staff with basic English, and photo-heavy menus designed for international visitors.

Venture off the main tourist drags, though, and you'll be back to pointing and smiling — which is perfectly fine. Doing a little homework before you go helps a lot. Korean food has had years of exposure through YouTube and K-dramas, so chances are you already have a mental list of things you want to try: samgyeopsal (삼겹살, grilled pork belly), tteokbokki (떡볶이, spicy rice cakes), bibimbap (비빔밥, mixed rice bowl). Knowing the name and what it looks like means you can walk in with a plan. Saving photos on your phone to show staff works just as well as saying the word.

For a head start on what to eat, our guide to Korean street food in Seoul covers the must-try dishes you'll find at stalls and markets all over the city.

[Image: kiosk ordering screen at a Korean restaurant]