SEOUL, South Korea — I have fallen in love with Seoul over the past couple of years, traveling for leisure and to cover the arts and culture sector. During my latest visit in December, I was preparing for an interview with a K-pop group in the Itaewon area when I arrived early to find a San Francisco icon thousands of miles away.
To my surprise, there was a Tartine Bakery on the ground floor of the K-pop label. The trendy cafe had a relaxing ambience, with people taking photos for their Instagram feeds while others sat studiously typing on their laptops. It was distinctively Korean yet carried the same essence that made Tartine and San Francisco’s cafe culture renowned around the globe.
Steadily over the past two decades, South Korea has become one of the cafe and bakery capitals of the world. Cafe culture is a big part of everyday life in Korea, with an estimated 100,000 cafes across the country, 24,000 of those in the capital city of Seoul alone. After arriving eight years ago, a San Francisco staple has helped change how the country bakes bread.
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When Tartine opened its first doors in San Francisco in 2002, it quickly established itself as an innovative and celebrated bakery with a reputation for its wood-fired bread. A darling for tourists, Tartine expanded its operations with its first international location opening in 2018 in the Yongsan District in Seoul, South Korea.
lazy fri13th via Flickr CC 2.0
lazy fri13th via Flickr CC 2.0
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Although it maintains an artisanal taste of San Francisco, Tartine Bakery fits seamlessly into the dynamic and ever-growing cafe culture in Seoul — especially with how it has disrupted the concept of a bakery to entice customers beyond the menu.
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“Today, Seoul’s cafe culture is evolving beyond mere beverage consumption into a full-fledged ‘dining culture,’” Yongbok Lee, brand marketing lead at Tartine Korea, told SFGATE in an email. “At the heart of this shift, Tartine Seoul presents a new lifestyle centered around bread.”
Tartine sets itself apart from many cafes and bakeries in Seoul with its wood-fired sourdough. Lee said that savoury bread was not common in Korea, as bread is predominantly viewed as a dessert. Therefore, Tartine had a challenge to produce good-quality bread while also appealing to its core Korean customer base.
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The view through the front door of Tartine Bakery in San Francisco’s Mission District, Thursday, March 7, 2024.
Charles Russo/SFGATE
Tartine Bakery, a favorite San Francisco destination for baked goods since it opened in 2002, makes some of the city’s best sourdough bread.
Adrienne L. via Yelp
“At the time of our launch, the Korean market was dominated by soft, sweet, snack-like breads. Sourdough — with its sour notes and hard crust — was a relatively foreign concept,” Lee said. “However, rather than altering our recipes to suit local palates, Tartine chose a ‘back-to-basics’ approach to communicate the true value of high-quality bread.”
Once a foreign concept, savoury bread has taken off across Korea. There is an ongoing cultural phenomenon called “Bbangji sunrae,” which translates to “bread pilgrimage,” as people are willing to travel from far and wide and queue up outside bakeries to try the best bread.
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It’s no surprise that one of Tartine’s best-selling items in Seoul is the banana cream tart. Appealing to the taste of the Korean customers, it is a dessert that is as eye-catching as it is tasty, with a flaky tart shell filled with smooth custard and fresh bananas, topped with shards of chocolate.
Lee said it is popular with locals, who “prefer sophisticated desserts that are not overly sweet.”
Tartine Bakery in San Francisco.
Courtesy of Chelsea Davis, Special to SFGATE
Tartine Bakery operates six locations across Seoul (with three in San Francisco, plus outposts in LA and Mill Valley), and each cafe has a unique atmosphere as they attract different clientele. For example, the Itaewon bakery on the ground floor of a K-pop label’s headquarters is surrounded by high-end designer shops. Therefore, it attracts younger customers who are drawn to the relaxing ambience and modernist interior design.
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Meanwhile, the bakery in the Yongsan District is situated in a busy shopping mall underneath one of the busiest train stations in the city. Therefore, it is much faster-paced and feels more like a traditional busy city cafe rather than a quiet retreat from the outside world.
Although demand continues to grow for more locations across Seoul, Lee said they’re training their bakers to embrace an artisan spirit and remain true to a “localised artisan system” inspired by San Francisco.
Adam Davidson is a freelance arts and culture writer with a focus on travel, movies and music. He has contributed to publications such as Radio Times, CLASH, LA Times and The Japan Times.
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