10 patisserie cafes in Seoul

Before I visited South Korea, my Instagram had been inundated with posts and reels about must-visit cafes in Seoul and Busan. So, I made a list and worked my way through it. Even though I stayed in Seoul for less than a week, I managed to visit most of the cafes on my list. Today, I’m sharing my recommendations on my favourite (and less favourite) patisserie cafes in Seoul.

Cheongsudang Bakery

This is the first café I visited, soon after I arrived in Seoul. It is located in the Ikseon-dong Hanok Village, very close to where I stayed.

As well as a café, it is also a patisserie specialising in yakgwa, a traditional Korean dessert. A yakgwa is basically a deep-fried honey cookie. The name ‘yakgwa’ consists of two syllables, ‘yak’ (medicine) and ‘gwa’ (confection), so it actually means ‘medicinal confection’. This is because honey was considered to be medicinal.

I also tried the black sesame fromage cake. Drinks I tried include the signature stone drip egg coffee and the custard chocolate.

Overall, Cheongsudang Bakery is one of my favourite cafes in Seoul and I would highly recommend a visit there.

Mil Toasthouse

Mil Toasthouse is a café also located in the Ikseon-dong Hanok Village. The house’s speciality is the steamed bread, which is worth trying. I had the very instagrammable strawberry bread. We got there mid-morning and we had to join a rather slow-progressing queue. If there is a queue, just give it a miss and find another café.

Soha Salt Pond

Not far from Mil Toasthouse, also in the Ikseon-dong Hanok Village, there’s Soha Salt Pond. Although I did not visit this one, I went to Soha Salt Pond in the city of Yeongju (and I really liked it). I tried several variations of the house speciality, the salted bread. Although the salted bread comes in both sweet and savoury versions, I only tried sweet ones. Highly recommended.

Onion (Anguk)

This is apparently one of the most famous cafes in Seoul. It is very close to Changdeokgung Palace and the Bukchon Hanok Village.

We got there at around 11 am. There were 2 queues outside, one for dine-in, the other one for take-out/dine-out. Inside, there was another queue to order. All the queues were very slow, due to not having enough staff (there were lots of empty tables). Overall, we waited in the queue for about an hour, and spent much less time sitting.

There was a good selection of sweet pastries as well as savoury items, but not that great to make the whole waiting worthwhile. If there is a queue, just give it a miss and find another cafe or go to the palace.

Nudake

Nudake is one of my favourite patisserie-cafés in Seoul and I would highly recommend it. Located in Gagnam, it is not too far from the Starfield Library – also well worth a visit. They specialise in croissants, and they have a big selection of both sweet and savoury pastries. Some are inspired by traditional Korean dishes/flavours, such as kimchi and hotteok. Pastries aside, I really enjoyed the décor, including some oversized croissants!

Ongeundal

Located in Seongsu-dong, Ongeundal (meaning “Humble Moon” in Korean) is a patisserie-café specialising in French pastries. Less instagrammable than Nudake, Ongeundal has more of an industrial vibe to it. There is a big selection of croissants, cruffins and canneles. If you happen to go to Seongsu-dong, I would recommend a stop there.

Mignon

This is a cat-themed café (not a cat café). There are several branches, but I visited the one in Hapjeong, as it’s famous for offering nice views of cherry blossoms. There were no cherry blossoms at the time of my visit, but I enjoyed a coffee and a tartelette nonetheless. Although they have a big variety of tartelettes, I only had one.

Picniq

Located between Hongik University Station and Sinchon, the Gyeongui Line Book Street was named after the Gyeongui Line on which it was built. I had read that Book Street was lined with train-carriage-like bookshops, but when I visited these were empty. Nonetheless, I enjoyed walking down this pedestrianised street/park, eventually having coffee at Picniq, which was filled with books by the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami (translated into Korean).

Miikflo

Lured by the cat-shaped puddings, I went to this cute café in the basement of Line Friends on Yanghwa-ro, but there are more branches elsewhere in Seoul. The aforementioned cat-shaped puddings come in several colours and flavours: white (milk), brown (chocolate), orange (mango) and red (strawberry). I had the white one, along with an iced coffee. Although the pudding was too cute to eat, I devoured it at the end.

Blue Bottle Coffee

I first came across Blue Bottle Coffee when I visited Los Angeles a few weeks ago. I was very excited when I realised there are several locations in Seoul and I visited the one by the Cheonggyecheon. This is an 11km stream flowing west to east through downtown Seoul, and then meeting Jungnangcheon, which connects to the Han River and empties into the Yellow Sea.

Further recommendations

If you want to have a coffee surrounded by books, head to Starfield Library, where there is a Starbucks (one of the nearly 2,000 stores in the country), as well as Korea’s first % Arabica.

Or, you can visit Daeo Bookstore, which is a second-hand bookstore as well as a little café. I had an iced yuzu and lemon tea.

Alternatively, you can go to Kyobo Bookshop. As you enter the bookshop, you will notice a Starbucks straight ahead.

Further reading

Check out my post ‘6 places in Seoul for book lovers’ published in my blog on 11 May 2024.

Alex

(the Traveling Psychiatrist)