Comprehensive Evaluation Including Expert Reviews and Online Citizen Surveys
Gastronomy Guide to Be Produced and Distributed for the “Visit Gwangju Year”
The city of Gwangju has selected and announced the “2025 Gwangju Restaurants” list, featuring 50 establishments that represent Gwangju as a “city of gastronomy,” on the 10th. This year’s selections include local favorites recognized by residents, such as barley rice, yukjeon, pork galbi, flower crab jang, bindaetteok, and raw beef bibimbap.
This year’s “Gwangju Restaurants” were chosen through a multi-stage evaluation process, including an initial expert review and a second round of online citizen voting, to ensure fairness and reliability. From June to September last year, the city gathered recommendations from citizens, experts, and industry professionals, resulting in 217 restaurant candidates.
In the first round, a panel of food experts, academics, tourism professionals, and consumers evaluated each restaurant based on strict criteria and fair procedures, considering taste, presentation, ingredients, price, service, and atmosphere. The second round involved 5,526 citizens participating through the city’s online communication platform “Gwangju On.”
In celebration of the “2025 Visit Gwangju Year,” the city plans to utilize the selected restaurants to create an on- and offline “Gwangju Gastronomy Guide,” which will be available at tourist information centers, hotels, and major attractions, as well as on the city’s tourism website.
The “Gwangju Gastronomy Guide” will provide descriptions, addresses, phone numbers, business hours, days off, and photos of the featured restaurants, offering useful information for visitors. Additionally, the selected restaurants will receive official plaques, social media promotion support, and, if they improve their facilities such as dining areas or kitchens, will be given priority for loans from the Food Promotion Fund.
Since 2006, the city has selected a total of 249 Gwangju restaurants over ten rounds. This year’s selected restaurants can be found on the Gwangju city website.
Lee Seungkyu, Director of the New Vitality Promotion Headquarters, stated, “We have created a trustworthy list of restaurants by balancing the opinions of experts and citizens. We plan to actively utilize the gastronomy guide so that visitors can easily find great restaurants and experience Gwangju’s unique culinary culture.”
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