Food for the Seoul

From South Africa to South Korea, restaurateur Roddy Bancroft offers the true taste of home at his three successful braai-based eateries in Seoul.

- By Yeshiel Panchia

In the Hilly Suburbs of Itaewon, Seoul, dozens of restaurants dot multi-story buildings, bringing flavors from all over the world to one of the trendiest districts of South Korea’s capital. On one particular street drifts a nostalgic yet distinct scent for native South Africans – the smell of a braai, meat grilling on a fire, at Braai Republic.

The restaurant’s co-owner Roddy Bancroft laughs at hearing a familiar accent on the phone when I reach out to him, and I feel an odd sense of comfort being almost 13,000km from home and hearing a fellow South African voice.

The South African entrepreneur had his start in Seoul in the way that many of his fellows do, filling the burgeoning market of English Foreign Language teachers who can be found across the country’s peninsula.

“We were never permanent staff,” says Bancroft to FORBES AFRICA. “Teaching is a one-year contract, and every year we said it’s our last year – eventually we realized we’d been saying that for almost 20 years,” he laughs.

South Korea is renowned for its culinary culture, particularly with street food, but after so many years there Bancroft was craving tastes from home, and over a few drinks with a colleague decided that he would start making droëwors, a dried meat snack South Africa is famed for, at home.

Fellow South African immigrants in Seoul soon were asking for packages, and they were overwhelmed with orders.