Seoul arrived as a luxury destination quietly and then all at once. The hotel inventory has caught up with the city’s ambitions — the Park Hyatt, the Four Seasons, the Josun Palace sitting opposite Gyeongbokgung — and the food scene has become one of the most sophisticated in Asia: Michelin stars, serious natural wine bars, the best barbecue in the world eaten at a table surrounded by smoke. The city is enormous and surprisingly navigable, the subway system is excellent, and the cultural layer runs from the UNESCO palaces in the old city to the hyper-contemporary energy of the Hongdae neighbourhood where the design schools spill out onto the street. For Indian travellers who have done Tokyo and want the other East Asian city, Seoul is the answer.
The food is the reason above all others. Korean cuisine has a natural relationship with Indian palates — fermented, spiced, complex, with vegetarian and vegan forms that are intrinsic rather than accommodated. Doenjang jjigae, bibimbap, the vegetable banchan that accompanies every meal: this is not a kitchen that apologises for plant-based cooking. The jjimjilbang (public bathhouse and sauna culture) is the other Seoul-specific experience — a night at a 24-hour bathhouse, sleeping on the heated floor with a hard wooden pillow, is among the most restorative things the city offers and costs almost nothing.
