Live fish lined up along the stalls at Jagalchi Market. Photo: Korea Tourism Content Lab, KOGL Type 1.
Buy your fish downstairs, carry it upstairs to eat — Jagalchi Market runs on a two-floor system all its own. Knowing the price structure and a few tricks to avoid getting overcharged makes the whole thing much easier to enjoy.
Live fish lined up along the stalls at Jagalchi Market. Photo: Korea Tourism Content Lab, KOGL Type 1.
Eating hoe (sliced raw fish) at Jagalchi Market works differently from an ordinary restaurant. The ground floor is a market lined with stalls and tanks selling live fish; the second floor is a row of restaurants that fillet the fish and set the table. You pick out the fish you want downstairs, then carry it upstairs yourself and find a seat. The person who slices the fish is not the person who sets your table.
This can feel unfamiliar at first, but it's not unusual in Korea — Seoul's Noryangjin Fisheries Market runs on exactly the same system, and many of the country's large fish markets share this "buy downstairs, eat upstairs" structure.
Upstairs, you'll often see signs reading "chojang-jip" (초장집) — this isn't the name of one specific restaurant, but a generic term for this whole category of restaurant. So "go to a chojang-jip" doesn't mean seeking out one particular place — it means picking any of the restaurants lined up on the second floor. Feel free to walk into whichever one looks like it has open seats, or wherever looks busy with customers.
What you pay downstairs and what you pay upstairs are two separate charges. The price of the fish is not "included" in the table-setting fee — it's a two-stage system where you settle up separately at each stage, which is worth knowing so it doesn't catch you off guard.
| Stage | Item | Roughly |
|---|---|---|
| Downstairs | Buy the fish | Varies by species and weight — more on this below |
| Upstairs | Table-setting fee | Covers filleting the fish and setting the table — chojang (vinegar-chili sauce), rice, ingredients for maeuntang, and side dishes. Paid separately at the upstairs restaurant. |
| Upstairs | Steaming fee (optional) | If you picked something meant to be steamed, like lobster or snow crab, a cooking fee of a few thousand won gets added on. |
Tipping isn't part of the culture in Korea, in almost any kind of business — restaurants, taxis, hair salons, and Jagalchi's stalls and upstairs restaurants are no exception. Paying a generous table-setting fee doesn't mean you also need to leave a tip on top.
Most Jagalchi Market vendors are honest, but it's a big market, so there are a couple of things worth watching for. Just repeating the two phrases below can help.
If you're not sure what to pick, gwangeo (flounder) or ureok (rockfish) are safe choices. Both are among Koreans' favorite fish for hoe, prized for a firm, chewy texture. They're caught in large numbers, so they're relatively cheap too — a solid value pick. If you're not used to spicy food, you can ask for soy sauce and wasabi instead of chojang.
The table-setting fee usually includes the ingredients for maeuntang too. It's a spicy soup simmered from the bones and head left over after filleting your fish, and it's the standard way to close out a hoe meal at Jagalchi. Add rice to the broth and the meal feels complete.
Maeuntang, simmered from the bones left over after filleting. Image: Pixabay (kps79421), Pixabay Content License.
You'll often hear that "morning is when it's freshest," but that's not really accurate. The fish at the stalls are kept alive at all times, so freshness doesn't drop off if you go later in the day. What actually matters is the upstairs restaurants' opening hours, not freshness — they typically don't open until around 10am.
Because the market is constantly handling ice and seawater, the floor around the stalls is often wet. It can be slippery, so it's worth paying attention to your footing and footwear as you walk around.
A four-day festival held every October around Jagalchi Market — the 2025 edition ran October 23–26 as its 32nd edition. It's filled with bare-handed fish catching, an attempt at a Guinness World Record for the largest hoe-bibimbap, traditional performances, and fireworks, and admission is free. English and Japanese guidance is provided, so it's a festival with foreign visitors in mind too. The exact 2026 dates hadn't been announced as of this writing, so the festival's official website is the most reliable place to check for the latest schedule.
Korea's card payment infrastructure is well built out, so most stalls and restaurants — outside of street carts — accept cards. That said, a few places quietly prefer cash to avoid card fees. The surest approach is to ask "카드 되나요?" (Kadeu doenayo? — "do you take cards?") before you pick your fish.