Where to eat in Jongno
Palaces, Insadong's alleys and Gwangjang Market: Jongno is old Seoul, and many of its restaurants have served the same dish for decades.
14 places our guide covers in Jongno, with what to order, how long the wait is and how to eat each dish.
- 🍲
Cheongjinok 청진옥
Soups & stews · Jongno · Since 1937
Seoul's most famous hangover soup house, serving since 1937. Its yang-seonji haejangguk is a clear, savory beef broth with soft cubes of congealed ox blood, tripe and cabbage, eaten with rice and radish kimchi. It opens at 6 in the morning, near Gwanghwamun and Jonggak.
Try: Yang-seonji haejangguk (regular or large)
No wait - 🍜
Gwanghwamun Mijin 광화문미진
Noodles · Jongno · Since 1954
Seoul's best-known cold buckwheat noodle house since 1954. You dip chilled buckwheat noodles into a cold soy broth that you season yourself with grated radish, green onion, wasabi and seaweed. A Michelin Bib Gourmand pick between Gwanghwamun and Jonggak.
Try: Cold buckwheat noodles (naeng-memil)
30-60 min wait - 🍲
Imun Seolnongtang 이문설농탕
Soups & stews · Jongno · Since 1904
Often called Korea's oldest restaurant, serving seolleongtang (ox bone soup) since 1904. The broth is mild and milky, and you season it yourself at the table with salt and green onion. Breakfast is served from 8 a.m.
Try: Seolleongtang
Short wait - 🍲
Jinokhwa Halmae Wonjo Dakhanmari 진옥화할매원조닭한마리
Soups & stews · Jongno · Since 1978
The original shop of Dongdaemun's dakhanmari alley, open since 1978. A whole young chicken simmers in a big pot at your table; you dip the meat in a sauce you mix yourself, then cook rice cakes and noodles in the broth. It has grown to fill a three-story building plus an annex.
Try: Dakhanmari (whole chicken hot pot)
30-60 min wait - 🥞
Bakganae Bindaetteok 박가네빈대떡
Market food · Jongno
One of Gwangjang Market's two famous mung bean pancake houses. You can watch the beans being ground in a stone mill out front, then sit upstairs for crispy bindaetteok, beef tartare and makgeolli.
Try: Mung bean pancake (bindaetteok)
Short wait - 🍚
Balwoo Gongyang 발우공양
Home-style meals · Jongno
Korean Buddhist temple food served as a calm, multi-course meal, run by the Jogye Order across the street from Jogyesa temple. Every dish is plant-based, built on seasonal vegetables, mountain greens, grains and long-fermented sauces. A good choice for vegetarians, vegans and anyone curious about a different side of Korean cooking.
Try: Temple food courses (Wonsik, Maeumsik, Huisik)
- 🥩
Buchon Yukhoe 부촌육회
Market food · Jongno
The best-known shop on Gwangjang Market's yukhoe (beef tartare) alley, run by the same family for about 60 years. Order the beef tartare bibimbap, or go bold with yukhoe and live octopus chopped together.
Try: Beef tartare bibimbap (yukhoe bibimbap)
Short wait - 🥟
Gaeseong Mandu Koong 개성만두 궁
Street snacks · Jongno
A hanok dumpling house tucked down an Insadong alley, making Gaeseong-style mandu: large, delicate dumplings from the old city of Gaeseong in today's North Korea. They come in a clear, gently seasoned soup or a bubbling hot pot to share.
Try: Gaeseong meat dumpling soup
30-60 min wait - 🍜
Gohyang Kalguksu 고향칼국수
Market food · Jongno
The Gwangjang Market noodle stall made famous by Netflix's Street Food: Asia. Sit at the counter and watch Cho Yoon-sun roll and cut the dough by hand, then eat a steaming bowl of knife-cut noodles with handmade dumplings.
Try: Hand-cut noodle soup (son-kalguksu)
30-60 min wait - 🍗
Gyeyeolsa 계열사
Fried chicken · Jongno
Often named one of Seoul's three great fried chicken shops, in the hillside neighborhood of Buam-dong behind Gyeongbokgung. Order the old-school fried chicken, light and very crisp, with golbaengi-somyeon, spicy sea snails tossed with thin noodles, and a draft beer. A favorite reward after hiking Bugaksan or Inwangsan.
Try: Fried chicken
1 hr+ wait 
Monyeo Gimbap 모녀김밥
Market food · Jongno
The Gwangjang Market stall credited with making mayak gimbap famous: finger-sized seaweed rolls of rice, carrot and pickled radish, dipped in a sharp mustard sauce. The nickname "mayak" ("narcotic") is a joke about how hard they are to stop eating.
Try: Mayak gimbap
Short wait- 🍖
Samhaejip (Jongno) 삼해집 종로점
Jokbal & bossam · Jongno
The best-known restaurant in Jongno 3-ga's bossam alley. Bossam is boiled pork belly sliced and wrapped in cabbage with spicy radish kimchi; here you can have it with fresh oysters in season, with garlic, or with spicy octopus. Order bossam and a bubbling pot of pork-bone stew comes free.
Try: Gul-bossam (bossam with fresh oysters)
Short wait - 🍚
Sanchon 산촌
Home-style meals · Jongno
A long-running temple-food restaurant down an alley in Insadong. The set meal brings a parade of small plant-based dishes made from mountain greens, roots, tofu and fermented sauces, with stone-pot rice and soybean-paste soup. Gentle, healthy and very different from Korean barbecue; Koreans often bring foreign guests here.
Try: Temple food set meal (jeongsik)
- 🥞
Soonhee-ne Bindaetteok 원조순희네빈대떡
Market food · Jongno
The most famous mung bean pancake stall in Gwangjang Market, right at the entrance to the food alley. Thick, crispy bindaetteok fried in a sizzling pool of oil, with meat patties and beef tartare on the side. The line is part of the experience.
Try: Mung bean pancake (nokdu bindaetteok)
Short wait