Why you can trust this
Our restaurant rankings aren't set by AI, ads, or paid reviews — they're set by public records of what Korean civil servants actually paid for with official (corporate-card) expenses. Unlike star ratings, this ranking can't be bought.
Official expense records are public data, disclosed by law. Unlike fakeable ratings or blog posts, the fact that officials repeatedly paid with public funds is a local-verification signal that can't be forged.
Verification strength badges
Selection & scoring
- 1Distance weighting — spots right next to the office are penalized; places worth a trip are rewarded (Michelin-style bell curve).
- 2Cross-agency verification — bonus when multiple agencies visit the same spot.
- 3Heritage & certification bonus — for long-running and certified restaurants.
Masked records can't be identified; coordinates, photos and ratings are reference info enriched from external data. We clearly separate facts (visit counts, agencies) from enriched info.
Data sources & license
- Confirmed restaurants
- 113,368
- Districts covered
- 250
- Records span
- 2020–2026
- Most recent official visit on record
- 2026-07-24
- Official expense records — collected from the original disclosures each city, county and district publishes on its own website under Korea's Official Information Disclosure Act. About the disclosure system ↗
- Century Shop & Exemplary Restaurant certifications — standard datasets from Korea's public data portal (data.go.kr). Exemplary Restaurants ↗ · Century Shops ↗
- Terms of use — Korea Open Government License (KOGL), attribution required. Only records where the restaurant name was disclosed are counted. KOGL license ↗
- Counted on 2026-07-27
This is a non-commercial public-data project run by one person. Restaurants cannot pay to be listed, and we take no sponsorship from agencies or businesses. The only revenue is a possible commission from travel affiliate links, at no extra cost to you.