SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA – DECEMBER 17, 2025: Participants Jung Ho-young, Hudukjuk, Monk Sunjae, Son Jong-won, producers Kim Eun-ji and Kim Hak-min, Yoon Jumo Yoon Nara, French Papa, Chinese Cuisine Witch, and Baby Beast pose during a press conference for the Netflix series Culinary Class Wars: Black and White Chef Season 2 at JW Marriott Dongdaemun Square in Jongno-gu, Seoul. (Photo by iMBC/Imazins via Getty Images)
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South Korean Netflix show “Culinary Class Wars,” which concluded its second season on Jan. 13, has been making waves in the food industry.
Reservations and waitlists for contestants’ restaurants increased by an average of 303%, five weeks after the show’s second premiere compared to the five weeks before, according to a report from restaurant booking platform CatchTable released through South Korean media.
“Culinary Class Wars” categorizes chefs into “Black Spoons” (hidden masters) and “White Spoons” (elite) chefs, mirroring the dichotomy between street food and Michelin-starred experiences, and viewers have been eager to taste from both ends of the spectrum.
This is particularly true for millennials — those born between 1981 and 1996 — and Generation Z, born in 1996 or later, who want to experience cultures other than their own, according to Euromonitor International’s Asia-Pacific 2025 lifestyle survey.
Culinary tourism interest
Dawn Teo, chief operating officer of Singapore-based hotel and restaurant developer Amara Holdings, said that reservations for restaurants featured on the Netflix show were “impossible” during a trip she made to Seoul last October.
The show’s impact “makes people sit up and take notice,” Teo said.
South Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced a shift to include food tourism in its 2026 strategy, it said in December — and the country isn’t alone in this increased interest in food from travelers.
In Singapore, food was one of the main drivers of record tourism spending between January and September 2025, according to the Singapore Tourism Board. Tourist receipts for food and beverage increased by 15% when compared to the same period in 2024, despite only a 2.3% increase in overall visitors.
And in Japan, around 82% of tourists reported that eating Japanese food was one of their travel expectations in 2024, up from about 70% in 2015.
Food is a way for travelers to experience authentic culture, according to Erik Wolf, executive director and founder of the World Food Travel Association.
“It’s less about the travel and more about the culture everywhere in the world. Especially after the pandemic, people are wanting to go to more rural locations, secondary and tertiary locations. They want to get to know people, and in a genuine way,” Wolf told CNBC during a call.
Gourmet-street food dichotomy
Hotels are similarly responding to this growing culinary interest.
Nearly 1 in 5 travelers specifically sought out new restaurants or culinary experiences, with 60% of luxury travelers prioritizing hotels with good food options, according to Hilton’s 2025 Trends Report.
“Restaurants today in hotels cannot [just] be hotel restaurants. They have to be restaurants as restaurants [in their own right], or venues as venues,” according to Candice D’Cruz, vice-president of Hilton luxury brands Asia Pacific.
For consumers, the focus has to be on the entire experience, from seasonal produce to where glassware is sourced, D’Cruz added. “If I’m going into Japan, I want to have the white peaches during peach season. I want to have the strawberries and the white strawberries during [the] season,” she told CNBC in an interview.
In Singapore, Amara Holdings aims to fulfill this desire for cultural experiences by providing guided tours of hawker centers and local markets, close to its flagship hotel in downtown Singapore.
It shouldn’t be considered a loss if “a guest isn’t eating with us for breakfast, lunch or dinner, if they’re going to another nearby Zi Char place or hawker center for meals,” Amara’s Teo said — Zi Char refers to inexpensive street food.
Rather, it should be considered a win when hotels are able to provide proximity to authentic cultural experiences, Teo said.
Customers look at fruits at a street market stall in Singapore, on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. Singapore’s tourism receipts rose 6.5% year-on-year in the first three quarters of 2025 to a record S$23.9 billion ($18.8 billion).
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Wolf pointed out that most people don’t frequently eat at high-end or gourmet restaurants when they travel, suggesting that Michelin-starred restaurants might put people off a destination since they might associate it with high costs.
While Michelin features luxurious experiences in its guide, it also highlights local hawkers or cheaper stalls. Hawker Chan, a former Michelin-starred restaurant, had a $3 chicken rice dish on its menu when it was awarded the accolade in 2016.
Yet for Eric Neo, culinary director at hotel Capella Singapore, “fine dining is more about intention, storytelling, whereby we are given the opportunity to interact, curate an experience for the guests,” whereas casual dining is more about “speed,” he said during an interview.
Capella’s tour through local markets has chefs function as guides, leading guests through the process of selecting ingredients and bringing them back into the kitchen to create a dish.
Neo also extends invitations to chefs outside Singapore, part of a desire to “bring up a learning culture between two different countries,” Neo said. Such experiences aren’t solely for hotel guests, but also for the chefs to expand their horizons, he said. Capella brought Korean-American chef and “Culinary Class Wars” contestant Edward Lee to Singapore to create a celebration dinner in August.
It’s also important to not lose sight of the historical cultural influences behind the food we consume, Wolf said, “especially the influence of women in protecting culinary culture” and “the seeds of cuisine in agriculture.”