Seongsu café with tapioca pearl soufflé and a window seat: 5to7

A great-vibe soufflé spot near Seoul Forest! It even has a rooftop, so it's perfect for this kind of weather. I went to 5to7 Seongsu Main Branch. Not just fruit soufflés — they have an unusual tapioca pearl soufflé (plus special ones like mangosteen and ube depending on the season), a real Seongsu-dong mood spot!!

5to7 Seongsu Main Branch hours and location

5 to 7 (O-tu-chil) Seongsu

• ⏰ Hours 08:00 ~ 21:00, closed every Wednesday
• 🚗 No parking available
• 📍 44-13 Seoulsup 2-gil, 1F, Seongdong-gu, Seoul, South Korea

It's tucked inside an alley near Seoul Forest, so it's a bit hard to stumble upon by chance — but that means you get an even quieter, cozier atmosphere. The building itself is a spacious three-floor café, and there are outdoor terrace seats too, which are amazing to sit at on a cool day like today!!

Why the first-floor window seat is the best seat at 5to7

I didn't know this, but apparently it's the soufflé pancake spot that appeared on the TV show 'Rice Is Good.' Now let me show you inside — right in front of the entrance there's an open window seating area, plus several small tables.

Both the first and second floors aren't fully outdoor, but they have window seats where you can really feel the outside air — and in my opinion, this is the best spot at 5to7. The moment we saw this seat open up, we grabbed it right away haha.

Second-floor terrace and third-floor hall seating

To get to the second floor you go out through a side entrance and up the stairs, and along that path there's a second-floor terrace seating area.

The third floor is hall seating only, so it's a really spacious area!!!! A group of about 6 people were enjoying soufflé on one side, and it looks like these seats fill up completely on weekends.

Ordering the pearl soufflé and an iced americano

We got a seat and ordered~! Among the soufflés I'd really wanted to try, there was a pearl soufflé I'd never seen before, so I ordered that!!! Since fig is in season right now there was a fig soufflé too, and it seems like they roll out a lot of unusual soufflé flavors by season — mangosteen, ube, and more.

Our order: pearl soufflé and iced americano. The americano can be made decaf too!!

The pearl soufflé is made by torching a sugar coating on top of the soufflé into a crème brûlée, then topping it with custard cream and tapioca pearls!!

Cutting into the pearl soufflé: how it tastes

Looking down at it, it looks almost like you're gazing at the moon. It's not small either, and it's stacked two layers high, so the portion is decent.

The soufflé-cutting moment — the thin sugar shell cracks and custard cream comes pouring out... Just from the visuals alone, you can tell it's a good spot.

Even after cutting it, the visual is so pretty... plump and bouncy, ugh. But it's not a texture that just collapses either — it has just the right density, but the moment it meets the cream in your mouth, it melts softly!!

Even the soft air pockets visible in the cross-section just melt away in your mouth — it's a seriously amazing soufflé... I heard it's really hard to make, so there's a reason it's been on TV so many times~~

Are the tapioca pearls sweet? Less than expected

It's famous that pearls pair well with custard cream, but the pearls exceeded my expectations, which surprised me!!! The texture was chewier and paired better than the pearls you get at Gong Cha, and eating them with the tapioca pearl syrup, the sweetness level wasn't as high as I thought it would be!! At first I worried it would be too sweet, but it was unexpected. Maybe it's because the cream itself isn't that sweet~

A visual bombardment.... They poured the cream so generously that I got to enjoy plenty of cream all the way to the last bite — a truly soft, fluffy soufflé spot.

Worth adding to a Seongsu and Seoul Forest date course?

Especially on a summer night or early autumn night like this, sitting at a window seat eating dessert as part of a Seongsu Seoul Forest date course is truly perfect... This time I had the pearl soufflé, but I feel like the seasonal fruit soufflés would also be delicious depending on the time of year~!! I'd recommend this to people who love unusual desserts like me, or really just anyone who loves dessert in general. Whenever you're craving a soft, delicious soufflé, come to 5to7 in Seongsu and enjoy the atmosphere and romance along with it.