Fresh fig cake for a family birthday at a Seocho café: Chef Cho

It was my dad’s birthday, so I went to Shinsegae Gangnam to buy a cake!! Sweet Park has sooo many cakes and desserts, but among them‼️ I visited Chef Cho Shinsegae Department Store Gangnam, which is known for piling on loads of fresh fruit. Tiny spoiler: it was seriously ridiculously delicious,,,💖

📍176 Sinbanpo-ro, Seocho-gu, Seoul, South Korea (서울 서초구 신반포로 176 신세계백화점강남점 B1) ⏰10:30–20:00 Fri/Sat/Sun/public holidays 10:30–20:30

How to Get to Sweet Park

I always get confused about how to get to Sweet Park haha,,, (I’m the person who gets lost every time).

For the fastest route to Sweet Park from the subway station, look for Exits 2 or 7!

As soon as you come up, head in toward the ABC Mart in front of you!

Once you enter Shinsegae, Sweet Park is right there!! This route is what I recommend because you’ll immediately reach the area with the most dessert pop-ups.

Chef Cho is right in front of the Sweet Park entrance I mentioned above, so it was easy to find. The place that is clearly overflowing with cakes is Chef Cho!!

It looks like it was also featured as one of the four cake kings on Master of Living!!

I prefer dairy whipped cream because it tastes much cleaner than non-dairy cream, and the sign said it uses 100% dairy whipped cream! (Love that~) The best-before period is two days when refrigerated, so keep that in mind.

Cakes lined up everywhere✨ Every single one looked unreal, and my eyes were darting all over the place!! They all looked delicious, so I stood there debating for ages before finally choosing one haha.

Chef Cho Whole Cake and Slice Cake Prices

Whole Cakes

Peach Berry No. 1/Mini: ₩53,000/₩39,000 Real Mango Rose No. 1/Mini: ₩56,000/₩39,000

Fig Pistachio No. 1/Mini: ₩58,000/₩45,000 Chocolate Whole Strawberry No. 1/Mini: ₩56,000/₩41,000 Pistachio Forest No. 1/Mini: ₩56,000/₩43,000 Dark Chocolate Forest Mini: ₩39,000

Cake Slices

• Fig Pistachio ₩12,000
• Fig Crêpe ₩12,000
• Dark Chocolate Forest ₩9,800
• Real Mango Fresh Cream ₩9,800
• Matcha Chocolate Strawberry ₩11,000
• Sebit Crêpe ₩12,000
• Real Strawberry Fresh Cream ₩9,800

It seems like the menu changes depending on the fruit in season!

Cake Packaging and Insulated Bag

When you buy one, they package it like this so it’s easy to carry! (A small ice pack is included inside as standard.) My travel time was under an hour, so I didn’t get a separate insulated bag, but it seems they recommend adding one if it’ll take over an hour! The insulated bag is an extra ₩2,500, just so you know.

How the Fig Pistachio No. 1 Cake Tastes

✔️Fig Pistachio No. 1 (₩58,000)

I debated between mango and this one, then picked Fig Pistachio! As someone who had been obsessed with Dubai chewy cookies for a while, I guess pistachio was calling my name? haha. It looked so pretty the moment I saw it, so I was beyond satisfied🤍 My family all went “wow!” the second they saw it.

The amount of figs is actually insaneㅠㅠㅠ The entire top is figs, so you can’t see the cake at all—I’m lying down right here as a total fig fanatic,,,🤍 And the fruit is incredibly fresh…! There wasn’t a single mushy spot, and it was super sweet ><

Even in the cross-section, the inside is packed full of figs, so the amount of fruit is seriously amazing!! But the even crazier part is that the pistachio tastes like the real, real ingredient. No artificial flavor at all (I absolutely hate Baskin-Robbins pistachio flavor, hoho). It had such a solid pistachio flavor that I can’t even imagine how much went into it—pure nuttiness!! But it didn’t have that dry quality nuts can have; it was just smoothly nutty? And it wasn’t rich in a cloying way at all, just insanely tasty. It’s the best cake I’ve had lately,,, I kept thinking how glad I was that I got the No. 1 instead of the mini haha. I would 100% revisit for another special occasion〰️ It’s an 11 out of 10✨