{
  "project": "Small Guide",
  "type": "city",
  "city": "Seoul",
  "local_city_name": "서울",
  "pronunciation": "suh-ul",
  "country": "South Korea",
  "curator": "André Ribeirinho",
  "description": "Radically simple, authored city guides. Small, edited lists of places, curated by André.",
  "url": "https://smallguide.to/seoul",
  "updated": "July 2026",
  "symbols": {
    "◎": "Soulful",
    "◌": "Planned (not yet visited)"
  },
  "places": [
    {
      "name": "IDA",
      "slug": "ida",
      "city": "Seoul",
      "local_city_name": "서울",
      "city_pronunciation": "suh-ul",
      "area": "Seosulla-gil",
      "country": "South Korea",
      "category": "Eat",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "Contemporary Korean cooking and natural wine on Seosulla-gil, the quiet craft lane along the Jongmyo shrine wall; a short menu that moves with the season.",
      "judgment_status": "selected",
      "experience_status": "visited",
      "visited": true,
      "public": true
    },
    {
      "name": "Nari’s House",
      "slug": "naris-house",
      "city": "Seoul",
      "local_city_name": "서울",
      "city_pronunciation": "suh-ul",
      "area": "Itaewon",
      "country": "South Korea",
      "category": "Eat",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "An old-school pork house going on thirty years; thinly sliced frozen pork belly (naengsam), a paper-ticket queue, worn tables, and a room still mostly locals.",
      "judgment_status": "selected",
      "experience_status": "visited",
      "visited": true,
      "public": true
    },
    {
      "name": "Geumdwaeji Sikdang",
      "local_name": "금돼지식당",
      "slug": "geumdwaeji-sikdang",
      "city": "Seoul",
      "local_city_name": "서울",
      "city_pronunciation": "suh-ul",
      "area": "Sindang-dong",
      "country": "South Korea",
      "category": "Eat",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "Some of the city’s best samgyeopsal, from a premium YBD pig, in tteokbokki territory; no reservations, so put your name on the list mid-morning and wait it out.",
      "judgment_status": "selected",
      "experience_status": "visited",
      "visited": true,
      "public": true
    },
    {
      "name": "Cafe Onion",
      "slug": "cafe-onion",
      "city": "Seoul",
      "local_city_name": "서울",
      "city_pronunciation": "suh-ul",
      "area": "Seongsu-dong",
      "country": "South Korea",
      "category": "Coffee",
      "symbol": "◎",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "Specialty coffee and pastries in a 1970s metal factory left raw, all concrete and steel; afterwards wander Seongsu itself, the warehouse-turned-boutique quarter around it.",
      "judgment_status": "selected",
      "experience_status": "visited",
      "visited": true,
      "public": true
    },
    {
      "name": "Felt Coffee",
      "slug": "felt-coffee",
      "city": "Seoul",
      "local_city_name": "서울",
      "city_pronunciation": "suh-ul",
      "area": "Gwanghwamun",
      "country": "South Korea",
      "category": "Coffee",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "A direct-trade specialty roaster with a designer’s eye; carefully sourced beans and a room to match, steps from Gwanghwamun.",
      "judgment_status": "selected",
      "experience_status": "visited",
      "visited": true,
      "public": true
    },
    {
      "name": "Fuga Coffee",
      "slug": "fuga-coffee",
      "city": "Seoul",
      "local_city_name": "서울",
      "city_pronunciation": "suh-ul",
      "area": "Gwanghwamun",
      "country": "South Korea",
      "category": "Coffee",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "A house-roasting bar on the Gwanghwamun Citywalk; its own beans, serious kit, and a caramel-deep macchiato to sit with.",
      "judgment_status": "selected",
      "experience_status": "visited",
      "visited": true,
      "public": true
    },
    {
      "name": "Leeum Museum of Art",
      "slug": "leeum-museum-of-art",
      "city": "Seoul",
      "local_city_name": "서울",
      "city_pronunciation": "suh-ul",
      "area": "Hannam-dong",
      "country": "South Korea",
      "category": "Look",
      "symbol": "◎",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "Samsung’s art museum above Hannam; the traditional wing especially, Mario Botta’s cool galleries climbing floor by floor through Goryeo celadon, Joseon white porcelain and buncheong ware, several of them national treasures.",
      "judgment_status": "selected",
      "experience_status": "visited",
      "visited": true,
      "public": true
    },
    {
      "name": "Deoksugung",
      "local_name": "덕수궁",
      "slug": "deoksugung",
      "city": "Seoul",
      "local_city_name": "서울",
      "city_pronunciation": "suh-ul",
      "area": "Jeong-dong",
      "country": "South Korea",
      "category": "Look",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "A palace by City Hall where hanok halls sit beside Western neoclassical ones; even just the loop around it, along the old stone wall, is the point.",
      "judgment_status": "selected",
      "experience_status": "visited",
      "visited": true,
      "public": true
    },
    {
      "name": "Hyundai Card Libraries",
      "slug": "hyundai-card-libraries",
      "city": "Seoul",
      "local_city_name": "서울",
      "city_pronunciation": "suh-ul",
      "area": "across the city",
      "country": "South Korea",
      "category": "Architecture",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "Hyundai Card’s four libraries as design objects: Design in a Bukchon hanok, Music in Itaewon, Travel and Cooking in Gangnam; members’ spaces, so you need a cardholder to get in, but built with real seriousness.",
      "judgment_status": "selected",
      "experience_status": "visited",
      "visited": true,
      "public": true
    },
    {
      "name": "Dongdaemun Design Plaza",
      "slug": "dongdaemun-design-plaza",
      "city": "Seoul",
      "local_city_name": "서울",
      "city_pronunciation": "suh-ul",
      "area": "Dongdaemun",
      "country": "South Korea",
      "category": "Architecture",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "Zaha Hadid’s aluminium wave set down in the Dongdaemun market grid; go for the building itself, though it can read more as an exhibit of its own curves than a place, and empties toward a ghost town off-hours.",
      "judgment_status": "selected",
      "experience_status": "visited",
      "visited": true,
      "public": true
    },
    {
      "name": "Common Ground",
      "slug": "common-ground",
      "city": "Seoul",
      "local_city_name": "서울",
      "city_pronunciation": "suh-ul",
      "area": "Konkuk University",
      "country": "South Korea",
      "category": "Shop",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "A mall built from two hundred bright-blue shipping containers by Konkuk University; some fifty young Korean fashion and lifestyle labels stacked three storeys up.",
      "judgment_status": "selected",
      "experience_status": "visited",
      "visited": true,
      "public": true
    }
  ],
  "rituals": [
    {
      "title": "The high and low of Yongsan",
      "area": "Namsan → the Han",
      "year_added": 2026,
      "public_line": "Yongsan in one arc of views: N Seoul Tower on Namsan above, Haebangchon spilling down the slope, and Nodeul Island out on the Han; a district that keeps handing you the city.",
      "google_maps_url": "https://www.google.com/maps/search/?api=1&query=N+Seoul+Tower+Namsan"
    }
  ]
}