Seoul

Cafe Orienté – beautiful design, and wooden spoons

The slice of Hannam just below the East end of Itaewon’s main strip is constantly changing. And right on the edge of the current massive construction zone on the former military grounds, a small design icon popped up: Cafe Orienté.

Naver maps link: 오리앙떼
서울 용산구 이태원로54길 16-9

Google maps:

Even if coffee would be terrible, this place could be worth a visit.

Rarely have we seen a design so thoroughly applied throughout a cafe – even the cups reflect the color theme of the whole place.

And the mix of beautiful photographs and rocks ‘casually’ growing out of the floor is definitely special.

When we visited, they were in the middle of some bean rotation, so likely the menu is changing. Also we hope that in the future the barista knows a bit more about the cafe than that it is from Ethiopia. Or that at least the beans have a label. Neither was the case.

Preparation was well executed, except we are not huge fans of the wooden spoon that some baristas love to stir the ground up.

In this case, there was definitely a light wood taste in the cup; easy to taste because it was otherwise fairly bright and light, nicely acidic. Maybe the beans were a bit outdated, because preparation itself, including timing and all was completely fine.

Overall still a place to be recommended. Pretty for photos as it is, maybe with a new roaster things get even better on the coffee side, too.

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