What Korean BBQ is actually about

I. The grill

The grill at a Korean BBQ table is not a heat source that food passes over. It is the centre of the social space. The people at the table orient toward it. The cooking is shared — not in the sense that everyone has a cooking responsibility, but in the sense that the meat on the grill is available to everyone simultaneously and everyone at the table is watching it together.

The person who tends the grill has a role at the table that is social as much as culinary. They are doing something for everyone. Everyone is watching them and contributing opinions. The table is focused on a shared, live process. This does not happen when food is brought from the kitchen already cooked. Remove the live cooking and you have a different kind of dinner.

II. The cuts

Samgyeopsal — pork belly, uncured, thick-cut. The most popular Korean BBQ cut for a reason that has everything to do with the experience: pork belly produces the most spectacularly rendered fat and the best ssam filling of any Korean BBQ cut. Galbi — short ribs, butterflied and marinated in soy, sugar, garlic, sesame, and pear or apple juice. The marinade caramelises and chars in a way that unmarinated meat does not.

Bulgogi — thin-sliced beef, typically ribeye or sirloin, similarly marinated, sometimes cooked on a solid plate rather than a grate because the thin slices would fall through. The name means fire meat — bul (fire) + gogi (meat). Chadolbaegi — beef brisket, shaved very thin, no marinade. The simplest preparation and the most dependent on the quality of the beef.

III. The ssam

The ssam is the construction that brings everything together. A perilla leaf or a lettuce leaf, laid in the palm of the hand. A piece of grilled meat, cut small. A small amount of rice. A dab of ssamjang — the compound sauce of doenjang, gochujang, sesame oil, garlic, scallion. Optionally a slice of raw garlic and a piece of green chili. Close the leaf around the filling. Eat in one bite.

The ssam is why the meat is cut into pieces at the table rather than served whole. Each element is correct individually and transforms into something else when combined. The perilla leaf's anise-adjacent freshness against the fatty pork. The ssamjang's fermented depth against the clean meat. The ssam is the moment when everything on the table becomes one thing.

IV. The scissors

The scissors are not a tool that the kitchen forgot to replace with a proper knife. The scissors are the correct implement for cutting grilled meat at the table. They are faster than a knife for the specific task, they do not require a cutting board, and they can cut through a piece of samgyeopsal without pressing down on it — pressing releases the juices, which is not what you want.

Every Korean BBQ table has scissors. The server usually cuts the meat as it comes off the grill. At tables where the diners cook themselves, the scissors are passed around. The scissors are also, like the grill, an object that focuses the table. The person holding the scissors is performing a specific service for everyone at the table. The scissors are the instrument of the communal meal.

Recipe — Samgyeopsal · The Method

Dong-hyun Yoon · Seoul · serves 4 · 20 minutes · no marinade

• Serves 4
• 20 min total
• 1–2 cm thick
• 0 marinade

The Ingredients

• 600 g pork belly, uncured, sliced 1–2 cm thick
• 3 tbsp doenjang (fermented soybean paste)
• 1 tbsp gochujang
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp sesame seeds, toasted
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 scallion, minced
• ½ tsp sugar
• Lettuce, perilla leaves, raw garlic, sliced chili, to serve

The method

1. Mix the ssamjang: doenjang, gochujang, sesame oil, sesame seeds, garlic, scallion, sugar. Refrigerate; keeps for weeks.
2. Heat a grill or grill pan over high heat. The pork belly should sizzle immediately on contact.
3. Place pork belly on the grill. Cook 3 to 4 minutes per side without moving. The fat should render significantly and the exterior should char at the edges.
4. Cut into bite-sized pieces with scissors. Do not press the meat.
5. Build the ssam: leaf in palm, dab of ssamjang, small amount of rice, a piece of pork, raw garlic or chili if you want.
6. Close the leaf. One bite. Repeat with the next round.

About the contributor

Dong-hyun Yoon

Dong-hyun Yoon writes about Korean BBQ and the communal grill from Seoul, South Korea. He has spent the last ten years tending a charcoal grill in the centre of a table in Mapo and arguing about which cut goes first.

Editor’s notes — the longer view

A note on the charcoal. Charcoal grills produce a flavour that gas cannot replicate — the smoke from rendered fat hitting hot coals is half the dish. The best samgyeopsal joints in Seoul have a small chimney over every table and a server who walks around with tongs swapping out spent charcoal mid-meal. If you have the choice between gas and charcoal, the charcoal is not optional.

A note on the perilla leaf. Perilla — kkaennip — is not basil and is not shiso, though it is related to both. The flavour is anise-adjacent, slightly bitter, distinctly Korean. Buy it fresh at a Korean grocery. The leaves wilt quickly; use within two days of purchase. A ssam wrapped in a perilla leaf is different from a ssam wrapped in lettuce; both are correct, neither is a substitute for the other.

A note on the order. Samgyeopsal first, when the grill is clean and your appetite is sharp. Galbi second, when the marinade can use the rendered pork fat already on the grill. Chadolbaegi is the closer — quick, hot, the last hit of beef before the ramyeon or the second round of soju. The order is not formal but it is consistent.

A note on what comes after. After the meat: doenjang jjigae or kimchi jjigae and a bowl of rice. Always. The stew uses the same flavour family the meal has been built on, and the rice resets the palate. Some places will offer to fry leftover kimchi and rice on the same grill the meat was cooked on — bokkeumbap. Say yes. This is the second-best part of the meal, and arguably the first.

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