You Can Ask What’s Good Here in Korean at a Restaurant

You can ask what’s good here in Korean when you’re choosing a meal at a restaurant. The question mwoga masisseoyo? (뭐가 맛있어요?, “What’s good?”) has been familiar to me since childhood. My father would ask the owner or a staff member while deciding what to eat, and they would suggest one or two dishes.

I don’t remember the names of those dishes. What I remember is the exchange: my father asked, and someone at the restaurant told him what he might enjoy. If you’re wondering whether you can use the same question, my answer is yes.

My Father Asked the Staff; I Look at the Top of the Menu

I grew up watching my father ask for recommendations at restaurants. He would ask “뭐가 맛있어요?” and the owner or a staff member would name one or two dishes. A menu full of possibilities became a few choices he could consider.

I can’t give you a vivid account of which restaurant we were in or exactly what they recommended. The part that stayed with me was the way he ordered. That was how I learned you could ask the people working there for help deciding what to eat.

Among the people I’ve observed, younger people don’t use this question very often, while some older people do. My father was one of them. That observation doesn’t give the phrase an age limit, though. Hearing it less often from younger people doesn’t mean a traveler shouldn’t use it.

My own approach is to order the dish at the very top of the menu when I visit an unfamiliar restaurant and don’t know what to choose. I assume it will be a popular, dependable choice. My father listened to recommendations from the staff; I tend to follow the order of the menu.

Of course, appearing first doesn’t prove that a dish is the restaurant’s best seller. That’s simply the assumption behind my habit. The clue I look for is the first dish listed, while my father asked someone directly. Even among Koreans, there are different ways of choosing a meal when the menu is unfamiliar.

How to Ask What’s Good Here in Korean

“뭐가 맛있어요?” asks which food tastes good at the restaurant. If you haven’t decided what to order, you can use it to ask for a dish they would recommend. This was the question my father used.

Chucheonhae juseyo (추천해 주세요, “Please recommend something”) makes the request to help you choose more direct. When you’re looking at a restaurant menu, you can also specify what you want recommended: menyureul chucheonhae juseyo (메뉴를 추천해 주세요, “Please recommend a menu item”). Both expressions let you ask for help choosing your order.

A post in Reddit’s Korean-language learning community asked how to request menu recommendations at a restaurant. One reply suggested mwoga jeil masisseoyo? (뭐가 제일 맛있어요?, “What tastes best?”). One post can’t tell us what all travelers worry about, but it does show that a learner was looking for a way to ask this question.

In the exchanges I remember with my father, the answer was the name of a dish or two. If you use the question, it helps to expect food names in return. If you don’t recognize a name, ask the person to point it out on the menu. Learning one question for a recommendation doesn’t have to come with memorizing every dish first.

How Would I React to a Learner Asking?

If I heard a visitor ask “뭐가 맛있어요?”, I think my reaction would be, “Their Korean is good. Do they understand the culture, too?” I would probably notice that they were using the question while choosing a meal before thinking about how many Korean words they knew.

I’m describing how I imagine I would respond, rather than recounting an encounter I had with a traveler. I can’t say every staff member or customer would react the same way.

The question itself would feel familiar to me because I grew up hearing my father ask it. Even if your pronunciation were a little hesitant, I would recognize a question I already knew from restaurants.

One Sentence When You Can’t Decide

I may choose the first dish on an unfamiliar menu, but you don’t have to follow my habit. If you want the restaurant’s recommendation, ask for it. Start with the question my father used: yeogi mwoga masisseoyo? (여기 뭐가 맛있어요?, “What’s good here?”).

Frequently Asked Questions