Isu Station pizza pub on a Sunday: 3 ales and limited slices, Raymond

A pizza place opened near my home, and it turned out to be a famous one from Hongdae. So of course I rushed over to try this Isu Station favorite, Raymond (레이몬드).

Where is Raymond Isu Branch and what is the atmosphere like?

Raymond Isu Branch is a 1-minute walk from Exit 9 of Isu Station. There used to be a shop here run by Tzuyang, and it seems Raymond inherited that lucky energy! I think it opened on May 13.

I'd only been eating Korean-style pizza lately, so American pizza was a real treat after a long time, and the exterior looks just like a Manhattan pizza joint, so I was excited.

Inside, hip lighting mixes with a oddly familiar Korean feel, and the air conditioning was blasting, so the mood was great haha. It was crowded when we first walked in, so I took these photos on our way out!

Raymond Isu Branch works for group gatherings and for couples' dates! I came to catch up with a friend I hadn't seen in a while, and with such a nice mood the conversation just flowed.

Raymond Isu Branch menu: set or single items?

Raymond Isu Branch has set menus and also takes single-item orders. At another table, two people ordered the signature Raymond Set and asked for a paper box to take the leftovers home. We're not big eaters.... so we decided to focus on the craft beer!

Belgian wheat ale and blueberry sour beer

We both like ales. This is the "Belgian Wheat Ale" my friend ordered, a Belgian wheat beer said to have won 26 international beer awards. It's fresh and fragrant without being heavy, so it went well with pizza that can get greasy!

This is the "Blueberry Sour Beer" I ordered. It's said to be a lambic-fermented beer that has won 16 international beer awards. Lambic fermentation doesn't add cultured yeast like regular beer; it ferments naturally, which makes the carbonation and flavor stronger. The sweet-sour blueberry taste was definitely strong, and the fizz tingling on the tip of the tongue was memorable.

With draft beer, the soft foam is the key. Cheers-ing and drinking before the foam collapsed made the empty feeling of a Sunday evening disappear! We sipped and chatted, and the food came out quickly.

What does the American Bulbeok pizza slice taste like?

Raymond started when its founder couldn't forget the slices they loved while studying in the US and began making them themselves, and sure enough each slice is really big! I've had Tera, Cass and Domino's Pizza before, but never American pizza with world-class craft beer, so I was excited!

The American Bulbeok pizza has a base of 100% natural mozzarella with bulgogi (marinated beef) topping, onion, jalapeño and cheddar cheese, so it's spicy and punchy! They also drizzle sweet bulgogi burger sauce on top, so the sweet-and-salty flavor is the real deal.

It was my first time using this pizza cutting tool and it was so fun and fascinating haha! It doesn't cut well once it cools, so cut everything in advance.

The American Bulbeok pizza is a seasonal limited edition, so it isn't included in sets and has to be ordered separately as a single item. It uses handmade Italian tomato sauce, which clearly sets it apart from Korean pizza, and the cold-aged handmade dough lifts the flavor even further.

My friend and I both picked this as the best dish of the day, so I'd recommend the American Bulbeok pizza to anyone ordering single items instead of a set haha.

We also added cheddar cheese sauce for ₩300. It doesn't have that funky cheddar smell, so it went well with the cold-aged handmade dough~!

Is the Brown Potato pizza a dessert pizza?

This is the "Brown Potato Pizza" slice I ordered as a dessert(?). It's also limited, so it can't be chosen in a set! It has a cheese base, but it uses ingredients not usually found on pizza, like Lotus and brown cheese, so I was curious what it would taste like.

Lotus itself is a little sweet and salty, so it went better with pizza than I expected? The potato salad is soft, with a good sweet-salty balance too~! It also has onion, sweet corn and Lotus jam. It feels kind of like a dessert pizza, right?

I recommend the Brown Potato pizza to anyone who likes sweet pizza! If four of you visit, ordering a Raymond Set plus an extra Brown Potato slice lets you finish on a sweet note after all the salty food, which sounds perfectly satisfying.

Bacon cream spaghetti and peanut butter porter ale

Pizza and spaghetti go well together, don't they? Honestly my standards for pasta are high, but pasta eaten with pizza I eat for nostalgia.

Ahh, that familiar taste!

Partway through we ran low on beer, so I ordered one more! This is the "Peanut Butter Porter Ale," said to have won 29 international beer awards. It has a nutty richness a bit like almond breeze along with the bitterness typical of dark beer, which made it a very unusual beer.

Would I go back to Raymond Isu Branch?

On our way out, the owner even gave us candy >< I love craft beer, so Raymond Isu Branch, a good place for a slice of pizza and a glass of beer, is somewhere I want to come back to! I hear the gourmet chicken, made with the recipe of the chicken master from Art Monster, is famous too, so next time I'll try the chicken.