Jeju Food and Travel Guide: Black Pork, Abalone and Haenyeo Seafood

Jeju, South Korea's volcanic island, has a food culture shaped by the sea, the wind and its black volcanic soil. The island's pride is heuksdwaeji, the native black pig, grilled over charcoal until the skin crisps and the fat turns silky. Equally iconic are the dishes brought in by the haenyeo, the free-diving women who have harvested Jeju's waters for generations.

What to eat

• Heuksdwaeji (흑돼지) — black pork BBQ, dipped in salted anchovy sauce, meljeot.
• Jeonbok (전복) — abalone, served as porridge (jeonbok-juk), grilled, or in stone-pot rice.
• Mulhoe (물회) — cold raw fish soup, tangy and refreshing on a hot day.
• Galchi-jorim — braised hairtail fish in a spicy, savory sauce.
• Hallabong — the island's sweet, knobby citrus, eaten fresh or as juice and desserts.

Where to go

Anchor your eating in Dongmun Market in Jeju City, where you can graze on hallabong, dried seafood, hotteok and fresh sashimi. For black pork, the lanes of Black Pork Street near the market are lined with grill houses. Out on the coast, look for small haenyeo huts where divers sell and cook whatever they brought up that morning.

A practical tip: abalone and seafood are usually priced by weight or by the count of pieces, so ask the total before ordering, especially at coastal stalls where the day's catch sets the price. Many grill houses also cook the meat for you tableside.

Worth knowing before you sit down: Jeju's family-run restaurants and market stalls frequently post menus only in Korean, so snapping a photo of the menu to translate it lets you order the genuine island specialties instead of defaulting to whatever you can point at.

Give yourself time between meals to wander the coast. On Jeju, the food and the landscape come from the same volcanic source.