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While I was studying abroad in Seoul, South Korea, my thing was cafes. Almost every day I would try to find a new, fun café to visit. If you want to visit some really nice cafes, Seoul is the place to go. I decided to compile a list of the cafes I visited with some highlights about what is so great about each of them.  

Aesthetic Cafes: 

Stylenanda Pink Pool Café 

This place is definitely worth the visit for the aesthetic alone. When you walk in, the café is plush and pink and has a variety of cute drinks and desserts for you to order. When I visited, I got a peach-ade and headed back to the second section of the café: the pool-themed section. This place makes for some very Instagram-worth photos. It is a nice and chill place to relax. This café, however, was not the easiest to find. It is hidden on an upper floor of the Stylenanda building, around a corner and amongst the clothes displayed for purchase. However, this did make entering the café feel a little bit like stepping into another world, which added to its appeal (and if you follow the signs they have posted inside you will find it eventually).  

PINK’s Waffle Crepe 

This is less of a café and more of an outdoor dessert place, but it is very aesthetically pleasing with its pink, sparkly, fluorescent appearance. The food there is also really delicious. This is one of the only two cafés listed that I actually visited twice, both because it was great the first time and because it is very conveniently located on the main street of Hongdae and I would pass it nearly every time I visited there. I got two kinds of lemonade from here as well as both a waffle and a crepe. You also order from here using a screen, so if you are too afraid to speak Korean, you can just switch the language of the menu and order conveniently in English. It is both convenient and delicious.  

Colline 

This is the other café that I visited for a second time thanks both to their amazing aesthetic and delicious food. Their fresh fruit and persimmon bingsus are probably the best that I had while I was in Korea (and I tried a lot, so that is a high compliment), which is why I went back again. Their watermelon juice was also the best I tried, and the earl grey chiffon cake I had while there paired with a kiwi juice were also to die for. This café is also both filled with and surrounded by plants and flowers making the overall atmosphere very nice. There is both indoor and outdoor seating available, so you could gather with your friends to eat on one of the two indoor floors, our sit out amongst the flowers in their patio-like section.  

Greem Café 

This is a fantastic café to visit if you are looking to take some interesting photos. Greem café is a 2-D café that looks like it has been drawn in black in white. They sell little pins at the front counter (one of which I nabbed when I visited) as well as some very cute and themed food. I ordered a cheesecake that looked like cheese, complete with a little chocolate mouse on top, which I felt bad devouring. It is another great themed café to give a quick visit if you have the time.  

Cheongsudang 

Cheongsudang is an absolutely stunning café to visit, and definitely one of the most Instagram-able on the list. Cheongsudang is a beautiful water and garden-themed café with a mix of both modern and traditional elements. I visited the Yeonnam-dong branch, but the more popular branch of this café is in Ikseon-dong. I ordered a sampler dessert tower while I was there as well as an orange-ade and everything was delicious. Visiting those café guarantees a good view, good potential photos, a good atmosphere, and good food.  

Lovin’ Her Flower Café 

This a very cute little flower-themed café. It is not as extravagant as some of the others, so if you just want a nice place to relax for a little while with a nice, sweet drink it is a great place to go. The ice in the drinks is also shaped like flowers, which I find pretty cute and fun. I got an apple-ade here, and it was really good.  

Café Black Drum 

Located next to the Hybe Insight Museum, this café really embraces the BTS theme. The inside of the café is decorated with anything and everything Bangtan. If you order certain drinks, you get free photocards or stickers or other fan-made merchandise. If you order a sandwich, like the banana Nutella one I ordered, they press it with your choice of BT21 character. It is a really nice place to visit after a trip to the Hybe Insight Museum to unbox any of the merchandise you picked up in the shop on the way out.  

Rococo 

This is a cute little café located in Insa-dong with really delectable sweets. They have a wide variety of really delicious donuts (I had the lemon one, but I tried some others that my friends ordered as well), cronuts, macarons, and drinks. I got a pomegranate-ade here and I think it was my favorite of all of the ades that I tried while in Korea. They also give out cute little stickers that you can pick up at the front of the café.  

The SameE 

If you are a fan of any of the K-Pop groups from YG Entertainment, The SameE café is a must-visit. The café is located quite literally directly across from the YG building, so you can get a nice coffee and donut, sit by the window, and then watch your favorite idols come and go from their workplace. They give out stickers with your order for whoever in the company has the closest birthday and they decorate the café for certain events. There is also a merchandise store in the basement of the café where you can get some very limited YG artist merchandise. 

C27 

C27 is a really cute cheesecake and coffee café that I found by accident. The strawberry and chocolate cheesecakes I had there were really delicious, and the atmosphere was honestly just really cool. It almost felt like walking into an art exhibit or a theme park with a small aesthetic rollercoaster running through the shop. The one I visited also had a nice view of the street when sitting by the window. 

Billy Angel Cake Company 

If you want some really aesthetic and delicious cake, this is the place to go. When I visited the Billy Angel in the COEX Starfield Mall I ordered what was called a universe cake which tasted just as good as it looked. The cake here was both delicious and light enough that I was able to eat an entire piece and still have room for a full meal of tonkatsu at a Japanese restaurant after.  

Noteworthy Chains: 

Sulbing 

I absolutely adore Sulbing for the sheer variety of bingsu they offer. When asked what my favorite café was in Korea, I would usually say Sulbing mostly because bingsu was my favorite food while I was abroad. Though I loved just how many kinds of bingsu they offered (from tiramisu to mango and grapefruit), their other food is what really sealed the deal for me. Their tiny fish-shaped bread was super delicious, but one of my favorite desserts I had in Korea was honestly the honey bread I ate at Sulbing.  

A Twosome Place 

I really liked the food I got from A Twosome Place. It is probably one of the more common chains you will see throughout Seoul, but that doesn’t make the food there any less special. The tiramisu cake Bingsu I got there quite literally made my day along with the lemon sherbet-ade I ordered that came with an actual scoop of lemon sherbet on the top. Not too difficult to find and definitely delicious.  

Animal Cafes: 

Zoo in the City 

I just loved this cute little animal café. They had honestly just about everything, and you can tell the animals were well taken care of. There were dogs that ran free in the actual café portion of the café, a room full of reptiles, and separate rooms for raccoons, meerkats, cats, and a joint room for ferrets and a kinkajou. When I visited, the only room I did not go in was the ferret room, but I had a good time in the others. I went pretty late and the staff working at the time seemed a little intimidated to help my friend as I since we did not speak completely fluent Korean, but it was still a positive experience.  

Eden Meerkat Friends (both the Myeongdong and Hondgae branches) 

I went to both branches of the Eden Meerkat Friends animal cafes and had a good time at both. The Myeongdong branch was a little smaller, but the meerkats there were a little more friendly. Both of the locations had meerkats, cats, wallabies, foxes, a raccoon, and genets (the Myeongdong branch also had a parrot). The animals seemed to really like the workers, and all they seemed very healthy. They were fun to interact with and the environment of both locations was very nice. There was also English-speaking staff at both locations, making Eden Meerkat Friends a little more approachable for foreigners.  

Thanks Nature Café 

This café is absolutely adorable. The food there was delicious; I ordered strawberry bingsu and it is one of my favorite bingsus I had in Seoul. The café itself is super aesthetic and feels a little like walking into a fairytale as you descend down into it. I believe the sheep sometimes are allowed to wander the café, but when I was there, they were just outside of it, and we were allowed to just freely interact with them after we ordered and ate our food. It’s a very cute café that I highly recommend. 

Goyangi Multi Cafe Mao 

This is actually the first café I visited in Seoul. It was late at night and my first time in Hongdae, and my roommate and I really wanted to visit a cat café before they all closed. My roommate found this one and honestly no animal café was really able to live up to this standard after. The cats in this café are super friendly, there is a chinchilla that has its own room, the cats have their own wardrobe, and if you go upstairs in the café there are all manner of games to play while you spend time with the cats from board games to mini arcade games to a Nintendo Switch. If this were a tier list this would easily top the list for animal cafes I have been to. 

Cloud with Sky Dog Café 

This café was really cute. Most of the bog breeds there were larger dogs (with a few exceptions) and they all free roam in a big room where everyone is free to sit after ordering from the café portion. I ordered a really good green grape ade from the café and then sat and waited for the dogs to come to me. Some of the dogs would cycle around to greet me before heading off to see who was new; it was just a really nice atmosphere. The café also had a lot of photos of K-Pop idols with their dogs, so if you want to hang out with the same dog as an idol, this is the place to go.  

Winters Village 

This café is a must-visit if you like Samoyeds because this café is full of them. If you don’t know what Samoyeds are, they are big, very fluffy white dogs. Winter’s Village has a whole family of adorable Samoyeds who you can pet and feed. They also all know some cool tricks and will pose for pictures with you. They also have a self-service station for different drinks if you want to sip on a nice ade while you observe the cute dogs.