Free guide · 7 min read
Korean for restaurants
Everything from the door to the bill: getting a table, calling someone over, ordering, asking for more side dishes and paying at the counter on the way out. Every sentence here uses the polite -요 ending, which is right in any restaurant in Korea.
Most lists of restaurant Korean are menus in disguise. You do not need the word for every stew, you need the handful of sentences that carry a whole meal, and a sense of how a Korean restaurant runs, because several things work differently from a British one. Day 11 of the daily course covers ordering and day 12 the phrases around eating; this guide is the field version of both.
Getting a table
The first question comes before you have sat down:
Staff ask 몇 분이세요? (myeot buniseyo?) as you come through the door, using 분, the respectful counter for people. You answer with a native Korean number and the ordinary counter 명 from day 9. In many small restaurants nobody shows you to a table: if staff wave at the room, sit at any empty one. Barbecue and stew restaurants often sell dishes by the portion with a two-portion minimum (2인분 이상), so a single diner should check the menu before sitting down.
Ordering
Call someone over, then point or name the dish:
Servers in Korea do not come round to check on you, so you call them. Many tables have a call button: press it and a chime sounds while your table number lights up on a panel by the kitchen. Where there is no button, 저기요 (jeogiyo) or 여기요 (yeogiyo) said clearly across the room is normal and polite. The dish comes first and the number after it, 비빔밥 하나, which is the reverse of English.
Side dishes and water
The small dishes that arrive unasked are free, and so are refills:
반찬 (banchan), the side dishes, come with the meal, and asking for more costs nothing. Many restaurants now have a self-service corner for refills, marked 셀프 'self', and water is often self-service too, from a dispenser or a jug with metal cups. 앞접시 are small individual plates for taking food from a shared pot, and staff will bring them without any fuss. 좀 softens a request, as day 11 explains, and is worth adding to almost everything.
While you eat
The set phrase first, then what you think of it:
잘 먹겠습니다 (jal meokgetseumnida) is said before eating, to whoever cooked or is paying, and 잘 먹었습니다 afterwards; day 12 covers both. Asking for a dish to be made milder works in places that cook to order, but not for kimchi or a stew base made that morning, so ask 이거 매워요? first. The scissors on the table are for cutting noodles, meat and kimchi, and staff will often cut things for you.
Paying
Most places take payment at the counter by the door:
The bill is not brought to the table. When you are ready, get up and pay at the till by the door, taking the order slip with you if one has been left on your table. There is no tipping in Korean restaurants and nobody expects it. Cards are taken almost everywhere, and while one person paying for everyone is common, asking to pay separately is perfectly acceptable.
These phrases get built into real conversation in the daily lessons. The first thirty days need no account, and the Hangul course will have you reading every sign in the guide.