Eating in Yeosu

Yeosu sits on the southern coast, and its food is built from three things: crab, mustard greens and a very large amount of fish. The city's best-known dishes are salty, spicy and meant for rice. This page is a guide to ordering them. For the longer story of the cooking, see the Yeosu region page, and for the province, Jeolla.

Start with the ten flavors

Yeosu has its own list of ten flavors (Yeosu 10-mi). The Digital Yeosu Culture Encyclopedia names Dolsan mustard-leaf kimchi, gejang-baekban, seodae-hoe, Yeosu-style hanjeongsik, conger pike dishes, grilled oysters, eel dishes, braised cutlassfish, ark-shell shabu-shabu and gizzard shad dishes. Like other city lists, it is a tourism brand, but it gives you a ready shortlist, and you will find most of the items in restaurants near the harbor.

Gejang-baekban: crab with rice

VisitKorea calls soy-marinated crab (ganjang-gejang) Yeosu's signature dish and says it comes in a sweet, mildly salty version or a spicy, seasoned one (ganjang-gejang and yangnyeom-gejang). Another VisitKorea page explains that raw crab is cured in boiled soy sauce, and that diners often spoon rice into the empty shell and mix it with the sauce. That habit gives the dish its nickname, "rice thief." The Yeosu encyclopedia lists it among the ten flavors and mentions the small local crab used for it. A baekban set builds a meal around the crab with many side dishes.

Both versions are eaten raw-cured, so the usual caution applies; read making gejang for how the dish is prepared and food safety at home for general guidance.

Dolsan gat-kimchi

Dolsan island, part of Yeosu, grows the mustard greens used for gat-kimchi. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture describes Dolsan gat as mildly pungent, tender and pale green, with less fiber and no fine hairs on the leaves. It says the greens are salted for about four to five hours and mixed with rice porridge, chili, garlic, anchovy sauce, raw shrimp and ginger, along with strips of green onion and carrot. Yeosu registered Dolsan gat and Dolsan gat-kimchi as geographical indications in 2010. VisitKorea describes the kimchi as sharp and tangy and says it was once presented to the king as tribute.

At the table, gat-kimchi is a counterweight to rich seafood: sharp, sour and a little bitter, it cuts through fat. See gat-kimchi, mustard greens and making kimchi. A Korea Herald article from September 2026 noted that Yeosu gat-kimchi was among the regional products on sale at a Seoul market before Chuseok, a sign of how widely it travels.

Raw fish, with a vinegar twist

Seodae-hoe is the raw-fish dish that sets Yeosu apart. The Yeosu encyclopedia says it is dressed with makgeolli vinegar aged for at least a year, which gives a mild, non-fishy taste with a tangy edge. The same entry makes health claims about calcium and iron that it does not support with a study, so treat them as marketing. For the larger tradition, see hoe culture and makgeolli.

Cutlassfish, oysters and eel

The remaining flavors are mostly grilled, braised or boiled seafood: cutlassfish braised with vegetables (galchi-jorim), oysters on the grill and eel in several forms. VisitKorea also notes that cockles are harvested from Yeoja Bay, which Yeosu shares with several neighboring counties. If you are in a group, order several of these together as you would at a hanjeongsik-style table; see hanjeongsik.

Planning

Seasons change what is best, and menus, prices and hours shift often, so check local listings. For general etiquette see dining etiquette and ordering and paying; for neighboring ports, see Tongyeong and Mokpo.