Seoul - High Heat

Seoul runs on late hours and outdoor grills. The pojangmacha stalls stay open past midnight, banchan side dishes arrive in small ceramic bowls before anything else is ordered, and the charcoal on the galbi grill takes its time regardless of how busy the room gets. The city is fast in most other respects, transit and construction and fashion cycles included, but the food culture operates differently.

Where to stay

In Gangnam, the Park Hyatt Seoul occupies the upper floors of a tower above the COEX convention district, with an indoor infinity pool facing north across the Han River and interiors that are spare and material-driven. Josun Palace, also in Gangnam, takes traditional Korean palace proportions at full luxury hotel scale, with direct access to the Dosan Park gallery corridor and the restaurant strip along Apgujeong-ro. Signiel Seoul starts on the 76th floor of the Lotte World Tower in Jamsil, with rooms stacked above every other building in the city and views toward the Han River that on a clear morning go further than expected.

What to eat

GiwaKang is among the most talked-about openings in Seoul right now. Chef Min-chul Kang, who received his first Michelin star in 2026, builds the menu around Hanwoo beef grilled over open fire, with traditional fermented accompaniments alongside. Mingles in Cheongdam-dong became Korea's only three-Michelin-star restaurant in 2025, Chef Mingoo Kang working Korean culinary philosophy into a modern tasting format, course by course. Onjium starts from the archive of Korean court cuisine, a one-star kitchen whose menu reaches back into the Joseon dynasty and arrives on the table as something current.

Where to drink

Zest, ranked sixteenth globally on the World's 50 Best Bars 2025 list and second across Asia, is a basement bar in Apgujeong where Demie Kim and her team use doenjang, perilla, and Korean citrus as cocktail ingredients rather than decoration. Charles H., in the basement of the Four Seasons Hotel in Jongno behind an unmarked door, is a speakeasy with a serious Korean ingredient focus and a reservation list that moves slowly. Alice in Cheongdam is a smaller and quieter room working the same seasonal approach, changing the drinks programme as the larder shifts rather than by season or trend.

How to move

Seoul divides across the Han River, with older districts to the north and finance and development to the south. The more useful axis for most visitors runs between Gangnam and Seongsu, directly across from the river bend. Seongsu was an area of cobblers and small factories until fairly recently and now has independent bookshops, ceramics studios, and coffee roasters in buildings with the structural bones kept visible. It sits several kilometres from the fine dining and the towers, and the gap is worth crossing.