Photos: © Lukas Lienhard

Seoul is stunning. Culinary too. Well-behaved, healthy and at the same time highly emotional and full of energy. To get a little closer to the food culture, documentary film producer Gary Byung-Seok Kam showed us the belly of his home city.

B efore we get to the belly, something for the head. Anyone who claims to know anything about food cannot avoid K-food. A feat, because the cuisine of South Korea is described by many who need to know as healthy (because it is diverse and fermented), sensible (because it is predominantly plant-based and seasonal) and rich in flavor (because it is composed in many layers). Of course, K-food is a pleasant lure for the tourism authorities, which is successfully used alongside K-pop all over the world and contributes to Seoul being one of the top ten travel cities in the world today. And what is there to the hype surrounding K-food? A lot.

Because trends such as sustainability, health and awareness are in line with the proclaimed K-food. Korean cuisine is warm and accessible. In terms of taste, it is more broad and less deep than Japanese cuisine. Both are complex. In Korea, cuisine is considered the basis of life, and by that I don’t just mean the religiously influenced temple cuisine, such as that celebrated by the world-famous Buddhist nun Jeongkwan Snim. In Korea, food is the “first medicine”. An attitude that can even be felt in everyday cooking and street food, and not just in the countryside, but also in modern Seoul, the “special city”, the starting point of the K-wave. In short: K-Food offers a solution to food and climate issues, as was made clear at the 2015 World Expo in Milan under the motto “Feeding the Planet, Energy for life” in the South Korean government pavilion. Of course, the success of K-Food can also be seen on a different level and as proof, for example, the series “Streetfood: Asia” on Netflix and in particular the episode dedicated to the covered Gwangjang market in Seoul. K-food arrives, K-food has arrived.

We meet with a connoisseur to discuss our plot for this story – even if it’s raining. Outside. It’s dark inside too, in the unspectacular restaurant. It’s late, and we’re very late for dinner. 7:50 pm. Let’s see if we can explore „his“ culinary city together with our protagonist over the next few days. Gary Byung-Seok Kam is not just anyone. He travels a lot, lives in Seoul, and provided NZZ readers with illuminating insights into the 2018 Winter Olympics with his column about the major sporting event, for which he also made the official film. He is a producer and director, and „his“ documentary film („In the Absence“) was nominated for an Oscar in 2020, making him the first documentary film producer from Korea to be nominated for an Oscar. He has produced countless TV formats as a director and has been an independent filmmaker since 2006. An intellectual creative mind. Prudent. Thoughtful. And! An enthusiastic connoisseur, with whom we are sitting in the middle of Gwanhun-dong drinking makgeolli. The naturally cloudy rice brew tastes sparkling, sweet and sour, and is as drinkable as liquid rice pudding. Everything is fine. The „farmer’s alcohol“ is considered to be one of the oldest alcoholic drinks in Korea. 16 different dishes are being served up in front of us – which is what a simple evening meal looks like here. Important: it would actually start at 6 pm sharp, the kitchen closes at 8 pm, and our clocks show 8:25 pm. We are the last ones in the restaurant. But the good night message is: Gary is taking part. For once, he’s in front of the camera – also, or precisely because it’s „only“ about food, although food is also politics, but let’s not go there.

With a small address note in hand (so we don’t starve), we can survive the next day and reserve a table at the Soowoon restaurant in the evening. Gary will accompany us the next day to where life is happening – cue street food and BBQ. A good script, we think, and wander through the city and the gourmet food department – sorry, the „Food Avenue“ of the „Lotte Department Store“ on Namdaemun-Ro the next afternoon. The department store spectacle and the staging of the food can certainly be compared with Tokyo – and the prices are also quite something. But you are in a K-food paradise. A few dried persimmons here, a honeydew melon for 50 francs there, spring tree shoots, chili, spinach, various types of onions and garlic, wild vegetables, roots, fresh and dried of all kinds, leaves for pickling, never-before-seen types of lettuce, mushrooms, radishes – everything for a good soup and fish and meat for a rich life are available here. Korean dates for tea. Hot peppers, which are rather new in Korea, just like pain au chocolat or French butter or wines from all over the world. We are amazed and it’s time for dinner. To be honest: we’re late again.

Modern, aristocratic Korean cuisine is on the menu. Soowoon by Haevichi, a restaurant in the heart of the city, is pared down, formal and very stylish. We are led past the long table – which is not intended as an exhibit but somehow looks like one – into a separate room. It looks like a UBS private dining banking room on Paradeplatz in Zurich. Nothing is too much. The wardrobes are hung in the built-in cupboards, and each piece of wooden furniture stands out with its clear beauty and form. The rest is a view. A setting that allows maximum concentration on fellow diners and on the food, which the chef, Dae Han Im, serves and explains personally. Anyone who follows him into the kitchen – which is not necessarily planned – and discusses things with him there, immediately realizes that he is driven by his passion and, as corny as it may sound, sees his profession as a calling.

He has trained meticulously and specializes in authentic Hansik cuisine. Hansik? In short, traditional Korean cuisine. He celebrates it in pure perfection and purity. Minimalist. Clear in taste and yet infinitely varied. Just like the restaurant itself. Abalone rice, pheasant dumplings, bean pancakes, dandelion kimchi and, to top it all off (from the belly of the beef), a kind of North Korean bollito misto to share (boiled meat, tongue, pine mushrooms, etc.). Of course, the makgeolli here does not come from a pet bottle, but is served with each course at the ideal drinking temperature – and even with mugwort added on one occasion. Soowoon is the right place for anyone who wants to experience a sophisticated interpretation of Hansik cuisine. A restaurant that was obviously conceived as a devotion. It is a gift that anyone who loves Hansik can enjoy. Nevertheless! We have to go. It’s 9:19 pm and we’re the last guests again. Good night.

„Good morning,“ says Gary the next day. Today is street food and BBQ day. It’s real life, and you can’t avoid the Kwangjang market in Seoul. It has been a paradise for foodies for over a hundred years and is one of the city’s biggest street food hotspots. It has been world-famous since the Netflix series, at the latest. „I love this market,“ says Gary, „because you can try so many different specialties in such a small space. The atmosphere is great, but the quality is not exceptional at every stall,“ he warns. You should be there around ten o’clock in the morning if you want to have a chat with the market women, because at twelve o’clock sharp, the market is flooded with people who want a quick, good, and cheap lunch.

„Do you want a taste?“ a market woman asks me, wearing yellow plastic gloves and maltreating a spongy, reddish-spiky hand grenade, fresh from the sea, with her knife. „Menogge,“ says Gary. Sea pineapple or Halocynthia roretzi. Before I’ve finished asking myself whether people really need to eat everything, she hands me a plate of slippery things across the counter. „Good for old people who no longer have an appetite,“ she says. Thank you for that. „But also for potency,“ she quickly adds, noting that pretty much everything that looks like it’s better not to eat is described as good for potency.

Menogge is considered a delicacy in Korea, and it goes without saying that decency dictates that we take great pleasure in tasting what grows in shallow sea waters, on cliffs, or is cultivated on a large scale in Japan and Korea. Raw. Uniquely intense. Like iodine. Earth. Sea and algae. Umami. But also slightly sweet. A sip of makgeolli – with mugwort added if you like – would be perfect right now, but it’s still a little early. The market is just waking up. The market women – yes, the stores are mostly run by women – are covering their stalls. They are cutting, gossiping, brewing, twisting, pressing, and laughing. A good start, because everything you eat after the sea pineapple tastes slightly sweet.

Gary draws us further into the legendary market, which can certainly be described as the belly of the city. In small cups, freshly brewed in hot water, I am allowed to try again in response to tempting calls, but before I do, I make sure that it’s really good for potency, and lo and behold: good for the potency! Silkworms. Thousands of them are on offer, dried in huge mesh cushions. Protein. Nutty in taste, a good thing if you’re not disgusted by anything. Onwards, onwards, there is still plenty to see, especially the vegetable stalls. In spring, they are stocked with wild herbs, roots, mountain vegetables, shoots, buds, and leeks that you can only dream of elsewhere. This diversity, this richness, and also the widespread Buddhism in Korea have ensured that vegan or at least vegetarian cuisine is incomparably varied.

Of course, you can’t avoid kimchi here either. „Koreans can’t live without kimchi,“ says Gary. It is made from everything imaginable, as the fermented vegetable is and remains Korea’s national side dish. It is stuffed into dumplings, the Asian version of ravioli, chopped into mung bean pancakes, which are freshly ground, pressed, shaped, and fried in fat to be eaten immediately afterward, or simply eaten on its own because it goes with everything.

Gary knows exactly where he wants to go – and it’s not the Netflix stand with the good story and the long queue. For him, food is more than just a media phenomenon: „It shows who you are,“ he says. „You won’t find your cultural identity if you only go to Starbucks,“ he says, leading us to an unspectacular stand. „I also come here with my friends,“ he says. The small stalls are an important part of Korea’s culture. They are stores that have been feeding and employing entire families for generations.

After seven minutes, it’s our turn to take a seat at the small chrome steel counter. Gary orders dumplings and noodles and bibimbap – everything comes in stainless steel bowls, everything goes quickly, everything tastes wonderful – and in the midst of all the business activity, the stand woman places a bowl in front of me and says: „Kimchi yourself“. This means that you scoop the kimchi yourself and make your dish as spicy as you like. The aim, as with the national dish called bibimbap, is to season and mix and match everything so that every bite always tastes different. Diverse and rich – that is the essence of Korean cuisine.

Lunch here costs six francs per person, with soup, dumplings, kimchi, main course, water, and all the trimmings. Unbeatable, but we instinctively realize that we have to clear the place – it’s the next ones’ turn. We could eat jellyfish with wasabi and sesame, raw sea cucumber, spicy octopus, black pudding, glass noodles, and, and, and. It would take a lifetime to understand everything here.

Dessert? There are waffle cookies in the shape of walnuts filled with sweet bean paste or rice cakes you could choke on. Gary suggests a short walk along the exposed river before we – slowly but surely – have dinner. The film producer is keen to show us the Jongno 3-ga district, which, according to „Time Out Magazine“, is the third coolest „neighborhood“ in the world. „It’s also home to Seoul’s LGBTQ+ district, which is vibrant and bustling,“ you can read there.

There’s nothing going on here at lunchtime, but when the restaurant lights slowly go out in the rest of the city, things really get going here in „old Seoul“. Narrow alleyways, food stalls on wheels, the hustle and bustle of life, music, the shrill youth and, of course, the world-famous BBQ joints where you sit around water-cooled barbecue barrels, chatting and drinking and letting the world be the world for once while the waiter cuts the pork into bite-sized pieces with a pair of scissors. There are various cuts of pork – neck or breast, for example – but also rind. Everything can be seasoned with sesame, pepper, salt, bean powder, and grilled mushrooms.

We are not sitting in any of the countless restaurants here – we are sitting in the Mee Restaurant and Mee means something like „taste“. The restaurant is overflowing with people and is well-known because it is well-known: „That’s also part of Seoul,“ says Gary and laughs. Fortunately, the chef of the house takes care of us, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to turn, cut, and grill the meat properly because of all the talking. And the soju, a rice distillate, doesn’t pour itself. Soju is the lifestyle here – everyone drinks soju, supposedly because there’s no sugar in it.

It’s getting late now, and Gary understandably has to say goodbye in the middle of the night. To say goodbye, he hands us a note. It says Hongdae – the „artists’ quarter“, where the lights go out even later. That’s also part of Seoul. We let it pass us by like clouds of smoke and swear – over pork rinds and soju – we’ll be back.