Gimpo brunch café with a baby: three pastas for two at The Nillai

The Nillai, the large café in Gimpo I visited before. The pasta and burger were so good I was shocked, so when pasta cravings hit again, I went back. Still a pasta gem, haha. If you're looking for a large café in Gimpo or a brunch spot, I totally recommend it.

Parking and location at The Nillai

The Nillai's parking lot is really spacious, so there's zero worry about parking, haha. There's even more space than the photos show, and I saw a lot of groups meeting up here. Highly recommend coming by car to meet friends 👍

The Nillai uses the entire basement level of the building on Yangchon-yeokgil, so the interior is really huge. I visited on a weekday and thought it wouldn't be crowded, but wow... since daycare and elementary schools were both on break, there were tons of families with kids. It was full enough that there were no empty seats. Still, because the interior is so spacious, it didn't feel crowded.

Baby-friendly seating and the goods corner

The inside of The Nillai is spacious and comfortable. The seats are well spaced and comfy, great for chatting too! We've visited twice in a row with our baby, and a lot of other people brought babies as well. If you want to chat quietly, there's a separate no-kids zone, so just head there!

The seats are this cushiony, so it's great! My bottom didn't hurt even sitting with the baby carrier on, haha.

The Nillai also sells a lot of their own branded goods. Mugs, cushions, keyrings—so many cute things that even little kids' eyes would light up, haha.

The Nillai's bread menu

True to a large café, there's a huge bread selection too. If you want to enjoy bread and coffee, The Nillai is a great choice. Lots of people were just drinking coffee or having bread with coffee!

There were plain-tasting cakes and tarts good for dessert, and lots of pizza bread good as a meal substitute! Last time I had the rice castella with a latte and it was so good. Highly recommend the bread selection too!

Brunch & drink menu

The Nillai is run by a chef from the 63 Building restaurant, no less! Genuinely surprisingly delicious, eyes-popping good. Definitely lives up to that 63 Building restaurant pedigree.

Last time I really enjoyed the burger, but unfortunately burgers weren't available this day. I was already craving pasta anyway, so it worked out—ordered 3 pastas, haha. Just the two of us, and we ordered 3 pastas 🤭

There's a quiet no-kids zone too

Even I, when I don't have my kid with me, want to chat quietly at a café, and it can be annoying if it's loud. That's when a no-kids zone is great, and The Nillai has both a kids zone you can bring children to and a no-kids zone on one side, which is really good. The no-kids zone was also full of people.

The no-kids zone has water inside like this, which gave it a nice cool feeling!?

A genuine pasta gem 🍝 ordered all 3 kinds

I'm such a huge Korean food person that I crave spicy soup pretty much every single day, so it's rare—like a few times a year rare—for me to crave pasta, haha. But wanting vongole, rosé, and cream all at once? What's the point of agonizing? That's a waste of time~ just order them all!!

So that's how we ended up ordering all three, haha. Let me review each one.

Grilled oil seafood pasta

The grilled oil pasta I fell for last time. It has spicy chili in it so it's not greasy at all. Anyone who likes spicy food like me will be super satisfied with this flavor!

Rosé pasta

Topped with thick, rich rosé cream, it was so, so good, haha. Tomato + cream is a can't-go-wrong combo! Loaded with plump shrimp too, so we ate it up very happily!

Cream pasta

The cream pasta my sweetheart loves. It has chunky bacon in it, so the meat-loving sweetheart was fully satisfied.

Checking out the media room

After eating well, we went to check out the media room! The background kept changing and our baby thought it was fascinating, haha. There are mirrors all around too, so it's great for family photos.

Flowers, ocean, candlelight screens—so many different scenes that it's fun to snap photos every time the screen changes, haha.

This was the day our little Ppukku turned 8 months old—happy 8 months, Ppukku 🎉 Our family had such a happy time at The Nillai. Highly recommend!