Seochon bakery café for a solo lunch: garlic shrimp sandwich, Respire

Solo lunch in Seochon while my husband was at a wedding

On an early-summer weekend, my husband was headed to a wedding near Seochon, so I tagged along and stopped by Respire Bakery Cafe Seochon (레스피레베이커리), a café I'd wanted to visit, all by myself. The weather lately is just crazy. Cool in the morning and evening, blazing at lunch: real early-summer weather! And on a precious weekend like this, my husband has to go to a wedding T_T So I tagged along! Seochon is great whenever you come😊

I go to the café I wanted to see, and he goes to the wedding! I've become a master of eating alone by now, and even though he offered to keep me company, I told him I'd be fine^^

Where do you park at Respire Bakery Cafe?

The lot right in front of Respire isn't available, so you have to use a nearby public parking lot! There are the Cheongwadae Sarangchae lot, the Singyo lot, the Hyoja-dong lot and so on.

Seating and atmosphere at Respire

Respire has seats on the 1st and 2nd floors, and lots of terrace seats too! Doesn't it feel totally like abroad? There seemed to be plenty of foreign guests, and later I even saw someone sunbathing on the terrace!

I'm going in!! I'd only heard about Respire and I'm so curious💛 "Respire" is French for "breathe." The owner apparently hopes people will come, heal a little and rest, and that's the thought behind the name.

Once inside, I got why it's called Respire. I'd heard it was a converted hanok (traditional Korean house), maybe that's why, but it feels extra cozy and snug.

The bread shelves at Respire around 1 p.m.

This is how much bread is left around 1 p.m. You can see loaves just about to sell out, haha

Doesn't the very last one of something always look tastier? That's me, haha. I normally don't care about condensed milk cream, but today I was tempted! There's quite a range of ciabatta and salt bread (soft, buttery rolls with a salted base)! The surfaces weren't dried out and looked well kept and moist. Oh, and if you join the review event you get one free salt bread, FYI^^

What I ordered and how ordering works

But I'd already decided on my order! A cheese olive ciabatta for my husband (to go) and a garlic shrimp sandwich for me (eating in)💛

At Respire you order on the 1st floor and pick up your items when a KakaoTalk (Korean messaging app) notification arrives.

2nd-floor seats and restroom

The 1st floor was full, so I'm heading up to the 2nd! Sorry about the narrow stairs, meow, haha. I'll let it slide. There's a women's restroom on the 2nd floor, and it's pretty clean!

I was surprised the 2nd floor had quite a few guests too!! Everyone came on a nice weekend for a Seochon date, I guess. I figured they'd all be in Seongsu, but plenty of young people come to Seochon too.

How does the garlic shrimp sandwich at Respire taste?

My order came out quickly!! The garlic shrimp sandwich looks even better in person than in photos💛 The cheese olive ciabatta I got to go was wrapped beautifully too, and they even told me the best way to eat it, hehe. I'll warm it a little in the air fryer. Breakfast tomorrow, sorted!

The garlic shrimp sandwich is a salt bread cut in half, with a wobbly-soft egg in the middle, a chili?? ketchup?? sauce on top, a whole pile of garlic shrimp, and a little arugula helping out!

I tried the shrimp first. The pepper and garlic flavor was superb. The way they pop in your mouth was great. Besides the garlic shrimp sandwich, lots of people were eating something like an American breakfast plate, but I wish everyone had this one T_T It was really good💛

I still can't forget that shrimp flavor! The egg was so soft too~~ kind of like the egg on omurice (omelet rice), right? I enjoyed lunch so much I couldn't let it go, so that evening I made shrimp and egg fried rice, haha. I followed a recipe and added pepperoncino and black pepper.

Is Respire Bakery Cafe worth returning to?

A pretty standalone hanok café like this near Cheongwadae! Even among the many Seochon cafés, Respire deserves the love it gets from so many people💛