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If you only think of Korean department stores as places to buy luxury bags, you are missing the most delicious floor in the building. Every major Korean department store dedicates one or two basement levels, known locally as B1 and B2, to a sprawling food hall called the sikpum-gwan. These spaces blend a high-end supermarket, a Michelin-adjacent food court, a French-style patisserie, and a Korean banchan market into a single, beautifully lit room. For locals, they are everyday grocery stops. For visitors, they are some of the most rewarding edible tourism in Seoul and Busan.
The Hyundai Seoul: Korea's Biggest Food Hall in Yeouido
Opened in February 2021 on Yeouido island, The Hyundai Seoul is the largest department store in the capital at 89,100 square meters, designed by British architect Richard Rogers around a 12-meter indoor waterfall. The basement food hall, branded Tasty Seoul, is the centerpiece. With roughly 90 food and beverage tenants across the B1 level, it is the country's biggest department-store food floor. Shoppers wander between premium hanwoo beef counters, French boulangeries, retro food truck stalls, and dessert shops that are exclusive to this location. The lineup of restaurants rotates constantly, so even Seoul locals treat it like an evolving food festival.
Shinsegae Centum City: The World's Largest Department Store in Busan
Down south in Busan, Shinsegae Centum City held the Guinness World Record for the world's largest department store from 2009 until 2016, with 293,905 square meters of retail space and nearly 700 stores across 16 floors. The basement food hall is built to match that scale. Tourists from across Asia head straight for the B1 grocery and prepared-food zone to pick up gimbap, gourmet kimchi, premium Korean strawberries, and Busan specialty fish cakes (eomuk) before browsing luxury brands upstairs. The store also runs themed exhibitions like 'Shinsegae Loves Busan' that spotlight local food brands such as Samjin Fish Cake and Leeheungyong Confectionery, blurring the line between department store and city showcase.
Lotte World Mall, Galleria, and AK Plaza
The other big names round out the scene. Lotte World Mall in Jamsil, anchored beneath the 555-meter Lotte World Tower, has a sprawling B1 Food Avenue with global flagships like Eataly Korea, plus the basement food market of the original Lotte Department Store in Sogong-dong with its Fauchon Paris outpost. Galleria Department Store in Apgujeong runs Gourmet 494, named after its 494 Apgujeong-dong address, which broke the mold in 2012 by curating 23 of Seoul's most famous independent restaurants into one marble-counter food hall. AK Plaza, with branches in Suwon and Bundang, takes a more practical approach, focusing on family-friendly food court eats and Korean ban-chan to-go for commuters.
Banchan Stalls, Bakeries, and Korean Bento
Walk into any sikpum-gwan and the first thing you see are the banchan counters. Glass display cases hold dozens of seasoned vegetables, braised lotus root, jangjorim soy-braised beef, oi-muchim cucumber salad, and house-made kimchi sold by weight. Right next to them are dosirak (Korean lunchbox) counters with neatly compartmented bento for office workers. Bakeries sit alongside them: every Korean department store has a Tous Les Jours or Paris Baguette, while The Hyundai Seoul adds French heavyweights like Eric Kayser and Laduree. Coffee comes from Starbucks Reserve corners or rotating specialty roasters, and the wine-and-cheese section often rivals a European deli.
Christmas Cake Wars and Chuseok Gift Sets
Two seasons turn department store food halls into a national spectacle. From mid-November, Shinsegae, Lotte, and Hyundai pour millions into elaborate Christmas facades and indoor villages, then back it up with a fierce Christmas cake competition where premium strawberry cakes from in-house patisseries sell for 70,000 to 120,000 won and require online pre-orders. Then comes Chuseok in autumn, when entire floors are converted into gift halls stacked with boxed Korean pears, dried persimmons, hanwoo beef sets, and ultra-premium fruit hampers that can cost over 300,000 won. Hyundai famously sold out 10,000 eco-friendly fruit gift sets in a single pre-Chuseok rush.
Chuseok and Seollal Premium Gift Halls
If you visit a Korean department store in the two weeks before Chuseok or Seollal, the food hall transforms entirely. Tables of perfectly round Naju pears arrive in individually padded gift boxes, alongside Sangju dried persimmons, Andong hanwoo beef, ginseng tonics, and traditional Korean liquors. The most expensive sets, sold by Lotte and Shinsegae, can reach into the millions of won, with names like 'ElPremier' and '5-Star Luxury'. Even mid-tier fruit boxes feel like jewelry: each pear or apple is wrapped in foam mesh, the box is lined with Korean paper, and sales staff hand-deliver wrapping ribbon for the recipient's family.
Closing-Time Discount Culture and Sample Tasting
Two insider habits make the food hall even more fun. The first is maamgam sale, the half-hour before closing when staff slap 30 to 50 percent off stickers on prepared bento, sashimi platters, baked goods, and rotisserie chickens. Locals time their grocery runs accordingly. The second is sisik culture, the generous free sampling that Korean food halls are famous for. Vendors offer toothpick-skewered cubes of marinated beef, slivers of melon, sips of rice wine, or fresh dumpling halves. A patient shopper can essentially graze through dinner. Just be polite, take small portions, and consider buying something if you really liked the taste.
How to Navigate as a Tourist
If it is your first time, ride the escalator straight down to B1 or B2 when you enter any major Korean department store. Most food halls have English signage, T-money and credit card payments, and tax-refund counters near the exits. Bring a tote bag, since plastic bags are charged extra, and aim for late afternoon if you want to combine sample tasting with the closing discounts. Pair it with the upper-floor shopping floors for a full day. The genius of Korean department store design is that you can buy a Chanel bag on the third floor, a Tous Les Jours cake on B1, and a perfect Korean pear gift box on B2, all without stepping outside.
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