Korean autumn food in 2026: what to order in Seoul and Busan

Picture yourself in front of the tanks at Noryangjin Fish Market in October. Gizzard shad, big prawns, blue crab: the names every Korean will tell you to eat in autumn are all in one place. But prices are per kilo, the restaurant upstairs charges for the table and for cooking on top, and for some items the sign gives no number at all, just 시가 (market price).

What you have to decide here is simpler than it looks. Which of these is worth your money on an autumn trip, and if a fish market isn’t for you, where else you can eat the season.

Here is the short answer first. If you buy one thing at a Korean fish market in autumn 2026, make it male blue crab, not gizzard shad. If the market feels like too much, a bowl of loach soup in central Seoul is the easiest autumn meal there is. Below: why gizzard shad loses its starring role this year, what separates the swimming shrimp and the soy-marinated crab from what they claim to be, and what a market meal really costs.

2026 is an expensive year for gizzard shad

Gizzard shad (전어, jeoneo) is something like the symbol of autumn fish in Korea. Korea’s Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries made it one of its “seafood of the month” picks for September 2026, recommending it grilled, raw or in a spicy raw-fish salad (회무침, hoe-muchim), and naming salt-grilled whole jeoneo (전어 소금구이) as the signature dish. It is a small fish that is often eaten bones and all. Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, September 2026

The trouble is the 2026 price. From June to August the South Sea averaged 25.4°C, the warmest in ten years, and less jeoneo was caught. Seoul Economic Daily, 4 September 2026 From 31 August to 5 September, the wholesale price averaged 32,900 won per kilo a day, more than three times the 10,000 won of the same week a year earlier. On 7–10 September, live jeoneo sold for 35,000–40,000 won per kilo at Jagalchi and Bujeon markets in Busan. Aju Business Daily, 15 September 2026 A year earlier it was the other way round: in early September 2025, the Noryangjin auction price was 11,227 won per kilo, about half of the year before. Korea Economic Daily, 10 September 2025

So in autumn 2026, I would not plan a market visit around jeoneo. If you are at the market anyway, it is in the tank, and you have someone to share with, buy a little to try. For a first taste, start with the salt-grilled version the ministry singled out. Just count on it costing you one other item at this year’s prices.

Jeoneo may not be caught from 1 May to 15 July (except in Gangwon and North Gyeongsang). Incheon Metropolitan City, closed seasons

The shrimp swimming in the tank are not daeha

This is where autumn shrimp buyers get confused most. If the shrimp in the tank are swimming briskly, they are most likely farmed whiteleg shrimp (흰다리새우, hindari saeu), not daeha (대하, the wild fleshy prawn Korea prizes in autumn). Wild daeha are so sensitive that once netted and out of the water they die within about three hours, sometimes within minutes. Whiteleg shrimp are harvested from farms two or three times a year, so they are sold live all year round. Wikitree, 21 September 2026

Buying whiteleg shrimp is not a mistake. The price is the issue. According to the same article, daeha sell for about two to three times as much. Paying daeha prices for jumping shrimp is money lost. If you want daeha, ask the seller whether they are wild daeha (자연산 대하, jayeonsan daeha) and look at the feelers: on daeha they run two to three times the body length, on whiteleg shrimp about one body length. Kormedi via Daum, 2 November 2021 Wild daeha are in season from September to December.

Autumn crab is male; soy-marinated crab is a spring crab

Plenty of travelers come to Seoul for ganjang gejang (간장게장), raw crab marinated in soy sauce. But is it an autumn dish? Not quite. Ganjang gejang is traditionally made with female blue crabs full of roe, caught in spring. One explanation even holds that frozen crab works better, because freezing keeps the meat firm and helps sterilise it. Munhwa Ilbo, 2 April 2020

Autumn blue crab is the male. In the West Sea’s general fishing grounds, blue crab may not be caught from 21 June to 20 August, and the autumn season opens after that. In spring the roe-filled females are popular; in autumn people look for the meaty males. Wikitree, 21 August 2026 So if you want crab in autumn, steamed crab (꽃게찜, kkotge-jjim) or crab stew (꽃게탕, kkotge-tang) is closer to the season than gejang.

Gejang menus show this. Pro Soy Crab’s main restaurant near Sinsa Station (프로간장게장 본점, in Jamwon-dong, Seocho-gu) lists ganjang gejang on Naver Place, as of 7 October, as “female crab, medium, 2 crabs” at 92,000 won and “female crab, large, 2 crabs” at 114,000 won, still in October. The same restaurant’s crab stew is 90,000 won for a small pot and its steamed crab 85,000 won. Naver Place On price, there is little to choose between them. Gejang is spring crab marinated and served all year; if you are here in autumn, I would steer you to the stew or the steamed crab and this season’s males.

It is also the easier choice if you don’t eat raw food. Ganjang gejang is uncooked crab cured in soy sauce; the stew and the steamed crab cook the same animal.

Crab is not cheap this autumn either. In the second week of September, male blue crab averaged 18,000 won per kilo wholesale at Noryangjin, 80% more than the 10,000 won of the same time a year earlier. Korea Economic Daily, 16 September 2026 Still, it has not tripled like jeoneo. If you pick only one thing at the market in autumn 2026, you are better off buying male crab and asking for it steamed upstairs.

How a fish market meal works: buy downstairs, eat upstairs

Noryangjin Fish Market in Seoul and Jagalchi Market in Busan work the same way. You choose your seafood at a stall on the ground floor and pay for it, and the seller takes you to a restaurant they work with upstairs. The restaurant charges for the table setting (상차림비, sangcharim-bi) and separately for cooking: steaming, grilling or a spicy fish stew (매운탕, maeuntang).

For Noryangjin, take subway Line 1 to Noryangjin Station, exit 9, and walk straight for 150 m; from Line 9, take exit 7 and go through the underpass to the market entrance. The retail floors open every day of the year, and the general retail section (대중) runs from 1:30 am to 10 pm. Noryangjin Fish Market directions Opening hours The restaurants upstairs close at different times. Late in the evening, ask how long the restaurant will take you before you buy anything.

Jagalchi Market is a six-minute walk from Jagalchi Station exit 10 or Nampo Station exit 2 on Busan Metro Line 1. Visit Busan lists its hours as 5 am to 10 pm and its closing days as the first, third and fifth Tuesday of each month. Visit Busan If you are in Busan on a Tuesday, check the date first.

Work out the upstairs cost before you go, and the market will rattle you less. In Noryangjin restaurant listings and travelers’ accounts, the table charge is mostly 4,000–5,000 won a person. One restaurant says it charges 8,000 won a person if you don’t order the stew, and its stew is 10,000 won for two. DiningCode: Haneulchae Two travelers’ accounts put crab steaming at 8,000 won per kilo. Put those together, and two people steaming one kilo of crab pay roughly 16,000–28,000 won upstairs, before the crab itself. That is about the price of two bowls of loach soup.

Order several dishes and the upstairs bill grows. The author of the Japanese travel blog kiko-travel wrote, in a post from May 2025, that two people spent 68,000 won on abalone, oysters, two blue crabs and clams (including some shrimp thrown in free). The second-floor restaurant’s table and cooking charges came to another 41,000 won, about 60% of what the seafood cost. The table setting was 4,000 won a person and crab steaming 8,000 won per kilo. Japanese was hard to get across, but pointing and photos worked, and stall 38 took a credit card. kiko-travel You can order without the language. But one steamed crab keeps the arithmetic simpler than sashimi, steaming and stew all at once.

A few phrases help at the stall: 수꽃게 (su-kkotge, male blue crab), 1킬로에 얼마예요? (il-killo-e eolmayeyo, how much per kilo?), and 쪄 주세요 (jjeo juseyo, please steam it). You can also just show the words on your phone.

Two rules still apply.

First, ask the price before anything else, and check the weight without the basket. In June 2026 a shopper at Noryangjin bought a red sea bream; with the basket on the scale it read 3.2 kg, and without it 2.4 kg. A fish columnist made the case public. Wikitree, 25 June 2026 For anything marked 시가, get a number before it is cut. In September 2025 a Jagalchi raw-fish restaurant drew criticism for selling sea cucumber at “market price”, and Jung-gu district found it had not displayed prices properly and fined it. Korea Economic Daily, 2 September 2025

Second, read the bill line by line. The author of the Taiwanese travel blog bigsharkgogogo wrote that on a January 2023 trip to Noryangjin, the restaurant tried to charge the table fee for their two-year-old daughter as well, and they complained; a 3,000-won crab-roe rice that never arrived was on the bill too. Both came off at checkout. They also noticed that each time they moved to another stall, a new Chinese-speaking staff member appeared, as if one part-timer covered five or six stalls. bigsharkgogogo

Payment varies by stall. One Noryangjin stall took a foreign credit card, while a 2025 account says a stall at Sindonga Market, next to Jagalchi, took cash only. Tessa Travel Bring some cash.

In Busan, if you want the Gwangan Bridge lights with your meal, Millak Fishermen’s Live Fish Market (민락어민활어직판장) in Gwangalli works the same way: buy on the ground floor, eat on the second. According to a travel blog in June 2026, the table charge was 6,000 won a person including stew, and it was open daily from 10 am to 9:30 pm. Seoul Knows

If the market is too much: a bowl of loach soup in October

If per-kilo maths and table charges sound like hard work, there is another way. The ministry’s “seafood of the month” for October 2026 is the loach. The character for loach, 鰍 (chu), combines “fish” (魚) and “autumn” (秋), a name said to reflect how the fish fattens and tastes better in autumn. Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, October 2026 Loach soup is sold all year, but unlike gejang, it is made from an ingredient that is in season right now.

Jeolla and Gyeongsang-style loach soup (추어탕, chueotang) is made with the loach ground up. Seoul has its own style, chutang (추탕), with the loach left whole. Newsis, 10 August 2025 Yonggeumok (용금옥), run by the same family for three generations since 1932, is a chutang restaurant listed as a Seoul Future Heritage. Seoul Media Hub Hyeongje Chueotang, once counted with it among Seoul’s “big three” chutang houses, closed in August 2017. Seoul Future Heritage

At Yonggeumok’s original restaurant in Dadong, chutang is 12,000 won according to Naver Place on 7 October. It opens 11 am to 10 pm on weekdays and 11 am to 8 pm on Saturdays, and Naver Place lists it as closed on the second, fourth and fifth Sunday of each month. Type “서울 중구 다동길 24-2” into a map app. Naver Place If I were planning an autumn day in Seoul, lunch would be this bowl. No per-kilo prices to work out, you order by the portion, and it is the very ingredient the ministry picked for October 2026.

If whole loach in the bowl puts you off, choose the ground version. A restaurant also named Yonggeumok in Seochon lists “Seoul chueotang” and “Namdo chueotang” on Naver Place at 15,000 won each; for the ground style, order the Namdo one. Naver Place On a day around Gyeongbokgung, it is the closer of the two.

In Busan and Gyeongju

In Busan, the market is the autumn meal. Mackerel has been Busan’s official city fish since 2011. Busan Metropolitan City At Jagalchi you can see stalls stacked with Korean mackerel, as in the photo above. In 2025 the Busan Mackerel Festival ran from 31 October to 2 November at Songdo Beach, with free entry. Busan Metropolitan City As of 7 October, that listing has no 2026 dates yet. If you will be in Busan at the end of October, look again closer to the time. Jagalchi and Bujeon markets sell jeoneo too, but as above, it was over 35,000 won per kilo in September 2026.

Gyeongju is different. Its best-known foods (ssambap leaf-wrap rice meals, Hwangnam bread made and sold in Hwangnam-dong since 1939, chalbori barley bread and Gyodong beopju rice wine) are not autumn-only. Gyeongju tourism: bread Gyeongju tourism: local food Rather than spending time hunting for a seasonal special in Gyeongju, eat these year-round dishes and give the time you save to the ruins.

If you are in Gyeongju in November, there is gwamegi (과메기) from neighbouring Pohang. It is fish dried in the winter sea wind around Guryongpo in Pohang, and it goes on sale from November, when the cold winds start. In 2025 it sold for 25,000 won for 20 fish. Wikitree, 2 November 2025 Money Today, 10 December 2025 For a first try, share a little among several people.

When it turns cold: on the street

As the temperature drops, fish-shaped bungeoppang (붕어빵) stalls appear on the street. According to an October 2025 article, the long-standing “three for 2,000 won” has given way at more and more stalls to 1,000 won each. Herald Economy, 21 October 2025 A few 1,000-won notes in your pocket make it easy.

Pine mushrooms (송이, songi) are an autumn food too, but in 2026 they are not worth chasing. At the Yangyang auction on 30 September, top-grade songi went for 1,623,700 won per kilo, after heat and dry weather cut the harvest. Wikitree, 1 October 2026

What to order in Seoul and Busan, autumn 2026

At the fish market, buy a male crab and have it steamed upstairs; let 2026’s gizzard shad be a taste and no more. Away from the market, a bowl of chutang in Dadong. Autumn is short, but you don’t have to eat every famous name. Pick the one that suits this year’s prices and your own taste, and you will have eaten the season.

Prices and opening hours are as listed on official pages and Naver Place on 7 October 2026.