Cafe Yeonnam-dong 239-20 • 카페 연남동 239-20

When you step into Cafe Yeonnam-dong 239-20 (카페 연남동 239-20), you’ll feel as if you’re stepping into a world of comic books where everything around you is defined by black flat line drawings. I accidentally found out about this cafe when I was scrolling through my explore page on Instagram. My curiosity was piqued as I saw the monochrome thumbnail of the cafe’s interior and decided to tap on it. After seeing a couple of pictures of the cafe, I thought it’d be interesting to check the place out. So one day, I went with my friends in search for this cafe in the middle of a residential area. Honestly, when we reached the location, I missed the entrance and if not for my friend who pointed me to the door of the cafe, I probably just continue to walked pass through.

Nestled in the middle of a quiet residential apartments, Cafe Yeonnam-dong 239-20 opened its door last year. The interior design of the cafe was supposedly inspired by Korea’s hit TV series, W, where the real world clashed with the webtoon fantasy world. So I guess this is the webtoon concept of a cafe. Pretty neat.

The cafe itself isn’t that big. I bet nowadays, since the place has gone viral on the internet these past few weeks, it’ll be packed with more people who wanna take a snap at this place for their Instagram feed. It is a pretty Instagrammable place after all. When we were there, it was pretty quiet. There were only 2 other people there with us who were sitting inside, so we opted for the patio area and took our seats. I ended up chatting with the owner for a little bit and she was very nice. She told me they opened last year and asked me how I found out about her cafe. I told her I found a photo on Instagram and she told me that I wasn’t the first. Apparently, lot of the visitors who came also knew from Instagram. She was surprised how Instagram could bring so many people here since she never really did any marketing for the cafe.

I ordered Ice Oat Latte (고귀한 라떼) and a tiramisu for us to share. Their ice oat latte was actually pretty nice if you like milk, oat, grains or the combination of the three. If you are curious to see what the place look like or just want a snap in this place for your instagram feed, definitely check out this cafe ;)

Cafe Yeonnam-dong 239-20 • 카페 연남동 239-20

Address: 서울특별시 마포구 연남동 239-20
Telephone: 010-7252-8633
Hours: 11:00 - 21:00 (Close on Mondays)

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Update:

This cafe location seems to have now closed and (I believe) have been rebranded and moved to a new and bigger location (not sure if the owner is the same, cmiiw, but the concept is very well the same). I haven’t been to the new location because every time I passed by the place, it always have a long line of people waiting. The information on the new cafe name and location:

 

Greem Cafe • 그림카페

Address: 서울 마포구 성미산로 161-10 그림카페
Telephone: 010-2612-8103
Hours: Wednesday - Sunday 12:00 - 21:00 | Closed on Mondays & Tuesdays

Instagram: @greem_cafe

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Belowlounge • 빌로우라운지

I have visited Belowlounge (빌로우라운지) a while ago but haven’t gotten around to sharing the photos on this blog yet. Since I’m working through my backlogged photos, thought it’d share this spot for fun. I’m not sure if they’re still open these days since when I tried to look for the most current content, I can only find posts from around May of this year.

This cafe was located on a very small alleyway and the only reason I found it was because I passed by its sign on the main road. The cafe is sharing space with two local brands that have their products on display inside the cafe. The space is small and quite but cozy enough if you are just looking for a place to sit and talk with your friends. Maybe the next time I passed by this location, I’ll check it out and see whether they’re still around or not.

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Daelim Changgo Gallery CO:LUMN • 성수동대림창고갤러리

Daelim Changgo Gallery CO:LUMN (대림창고 갤러리 컬럼 also known as 성수동대림창고갤러리) is probably one of my favorite industrial café that I visited when this type of cafe started becoming popular in Seoul. Prior to my visit to Cafe Onion, I actually stumbled upon this cafe way before. Two years ago to be exact. Let me tell you what makes this place one of my favorite. As you may know, Seoul has a lot of cafes. The cafe culture here is pretty big and you won’t have a problem finding cafes to hang out at. What I found out from my multiple explorations is that there are more smaller cafes in Seoul than the spacious ones. You’ll be more likely to find cafes with ten to twenty seatings in different neighborhoods than cafes with seatings more than that (I’m talking about the non-chain cafes here. Not the big chain cafes).

Located in an industrial neighborhood and having big storage buildings as neighbors, Daelim Changgo’s exterior doesn’t necessarily screams hip cafe (the building was used as a storage space and a rice mill at some point after all). I thought it was a foundry at first. For real! I took a peek from one of the windows and saw what seemed to be a metal sculpture on display. I was curious what this place actually is and decided to hang around for a bit.

After a couple of minutes, I noticed that different groups of young people start entering the building through the big wooden door. And they don’t look like they work or have any business in a foundry. Most of them look like college students or group of girls that are hanging out. At that point, I concluded that this place is probably not a foundry and decided to follow one group of girls that was entering the wooden door to check out the place.

Imagine my surprise when I walked into the space and found out that it’s actually a cafe and art gallery. The space was huge for a cafe. Exposed beams, high ceilings, and the combination of concrete and brick walls give this whole place a very industrial vibes. But combine that with the art installations, furnitures, and plants that they placed around the space, they actually made it a pretty cool place to hang out at. And not only that, the cafe also have four different seating areas in this space—two different section on the ground floor and a more smaller area on the second floor and a rooftop area if you want to enjoy the weather. I mean, you gotta understand, to me this felt like such a contrast to the cafes I’ve been to prior to my visit to this place. And it was so good to found a place that is so different than the ones I’ve been to before. Granted these days, there are probably more cafes like this in Seoul but at least back then, this was still pretty rare I have to say.

Anyways, I ended up hanging out here for a bit. Ordered a drink, took a break, and looked around the space. My tip for you is this is a good place to go to when you are hanging out in a bigger groups. The chance of you finding enough seats for everyone is probably higher here since they have a lot of seating areas (although the place gets pretty busy during the weekend). They also have extensive food and drink menu. For drinks, they serve coffee, tea, non-coffee options as well as beer. For their food options, they serve desserts and also lunch and dinner menu ranging from soup, salad, pasta, and pizza. Plenty to choose from. And oh, one more thing, if you do come to this place, give that big wooden door a good push when you are entering. The door is quite heavy and it does took some effort to get it to move ;)

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(p.s: photos are from my first visit two years ago.)

Daelim Warehouse Gallery CO:LUMN • 대림창고 갤러리 컬럼

Address: 서울 성동구 성수이로 78
Telephone: 02-499-9669
Hours: 11:00 - 23:00

Instagram: @daelim_changgo

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Cafe Onion • 어니언 성수

With the trend of industrial cafés that has been on the rise in Seoul, Cafe Onion (어니언 성수) is probably one of the more well-known spot that attracts lots of crowds, especially with their spacious location and rooftop area. I first visited this place early afternoon on a weekday and the place was pretty packed. I was expecting to meet a young hipster crowd but to my surprise, there were a good number of the older crowds too hanging out at this place. I guess everybody likes to hang out here. And after touring the place and see how many different seating sections they have, I can't blame them. The place is pretty cool and the ample seating makes the place even more appealing to visit, especially when you don't want to have to worry about lining up for an empty seat.

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Cafe Onion • 어니언 성수

Address: 서울특별시 성동구 아차산로9길 8
Telephone: 02-1644-1941
Hours: Weekdays 08:00-22:00
            Weekends 10:00-22:00

Instagram: @cafe.onion

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Cacao Boom • 카카오봄

I visited Cacao Boom (카카오봄) with Soo Zee last spring after one of our usual catch up dinner. This place is apparently one of her favorite gelato place in Hongdae (홍대) and since I don't drink coffee and never been here before, she thought this would be a prefect place for us to get dessert. The weather outside was a little bit chilly for me so I ordered their hot chocolate. It was delicious. Not too sweet, perfect temperature and it even came with side of a leaf-shaped chocolate bites. Soo Zee on the other hand, despite of the chilly weather outside, already had her heart set on ordering their chocolate gelato even before we reached this place. And so she did and according to her review, it tasted really good. Don't believe me? Watch the clip here or go try their gelato and see for yourself ;)

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By the way, if you haven't already known, my friends Soo Zee and Leigh, who make videos on Youtube for their channel DoStuff, actually also have a food account called TasteStuff on Instagram that is filled with awesome food spots. They've taken me to so many different places that have tasty and excellent food and some of those places have become my favorite spots too. If you're looking for some legit places to eat in Seoul (and sometimes outside Seoul), go give this account a follow!

p.s: They also just recently post their thoughts on Cacao Boom's chocolate gelato. 

 

Cacao Boom (카카오봄)

Address: 서울특별시 마포구 와우산로27길 6
Telephone: 02-3141-4663
Hours: 11:00 - 22:00

Instagram: @cacaoboom

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