About Cheongchosu Mulhoe
Cheongchosu Mulhoe opened in 1969 on this Cheongho-ro address at the edge of Sokcho's Abai Village neighbourhood and is the restaurant credited with inventing mulhoe — the Korean cold raw-fish soup that combines chilled fish-bone broth, gochujang, sliced raw fish, julienned vegetables, and ice cubes into a single chilled bowl. The dish has since spread across the East Sea coast (most notably to Gangneung and Busan), but Cheongchosu remains the reference and the only restaurant in Korea that can document the dish's creation.
The signature is the Standard Mulhoe at ₩15,000 — a deep ceramic bowl of chilled fish-bone broth, mixed with gochujang, sesame oil, soy, garlic, and sesame seeds; topped with thin-sliced raw flounder, octopus, sea cucumber, julienned cucumber and pear, and a small mound of crushed ice. Diners eat the soup-and-fish first, then ask the staff for the dotorimuk (the chilled buckwheat noodle that's added to the leftover broth to make the second-half meal). The premium Modeum-Mulhoe with mixed sashimi runs ₩25,000.
The room sits on the third floor of a four-storey building with bay windows facing the Sokcho harbour and Seoraksan range to the west. Capacity is one hundred across the floor; reservations are useful on Friday-Saturday evenings; walk-ins outside peak hours work. English picture menus are present and the staff speak basic functional English.
What makes Cheongchosu the right Sokcho mulhoe answer rather than just one of dozens is the historical claim and the broth's quality — the fish bones are simmered for six hours each morning, the broth is chilled before service, and the gochujang-sesame seasoning is balanced more carefully than at the imitator restaurants across the East Sea coast.
Best Occasion Fit
First dates — the unfamiliar-cold-soup format gives the meal a built-in conversation moment, the price is approachable, and the third-floor harbour view is genuinely good. Solo travellers — bay-window seat, twenty-minute meal, ¥15,000 bill. Team dinners at the back tables for four to six work without complaint.
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