Saturday dinner booking at a Hapjeong pizzeria: Hongdae Hwadeok Pizza

Hapjeong restaurant pick, a wood-fired pizza place near Hongdae: Hongdae Hwadeok Pizza (홍대화덕피자)

Now that the mornings and evenings have turned properly cool, doesn't a hot, freshly baked pizza sound good? That's exactly how I felt, so this time I went to Hongdae Hwadeok Pizza, a wood-fired pizza restaurant near Hapjeong Station. I went on a weekend evening with my husband as a little date, and the short version is: the pizza, the pasta and, surprisingly, even the drink were all satisfying 🍕

Hongdae Hwadeok Pizza hours, parking and reservations

Hongdae Hwadeok Pizza is at 5 Dongmak-ro 7-gil, Mapo-gu, Seoul, on the first floor, and it is open every day from 11:30 to 22:00. On weekdays there is a break time from 15:30 to 16:30, but there is no break on weekends.

• Name: Hongdae Hwadeok Pizza (홍대화덕피자)
• Address: 5 Dongmak-ro 7-gil, Mapo-gu, Seoul, 1st floor
• Weekdays 11:30–22:00 (break time 15:30–16:30)
• Weekends 11:30–22:00 (no break time)
• Last order 21:30
• Closed every Tuesday
• Parking: no private lot (the nearby Dangin open-air public parking lot is available)
• Reservations: available on Naver (strongly recommended for weekend evenings!)

How to get to Hongdae Hwadeok Pizza from Hapjeong Station

It's about a 5–6 minute walk from Exit 6 of Hapjeong Station (Lines 2 and 6), roughly 400 m, so it's quick. The restaurant sits about halfway between Hapjeong and Sangsu stations, so coming from the Sangsu side is an easy walk too. If you're driving, there's no lot of its own, so park at the Dangin open-air public parking lot nearby and walk over.

Hongdae Hwadeok Pizza exterior

It had that warm, friendly feel of a shop that has sat in an alley for a long time. Less flashy, more of a "this is clearly an old favorite" vibe :)

Saturday evening at Hongdae Hwadeok Pizza: do you really need a reservation?

Around 7 p.m. on a Saturday, Hongdae Hwadeok Pizza is so busy that there are almost no empty seats, so I recommend booking. From about 7:30, the earlier seating cleared out and it became much more relaxed.

We arrived around 7 p.m. on Saturday, and the second we walked in I couldn't help saying, "Wow, there are so many people…" 😳 It was packed with hardly a free seat, and every table was buzzing with conversation and the smell of baking pizza.

Luckily we had booked on Naver in advance, so we sat down right away with no wait. Funnily enough, by about 7:30 the earlier guests started leaving one by one and the room got much calmer. So if you're going on a weekend evening:

• If you're going at the 7 p.m. peak, definitely reserve
• If you can't get a reservation, arriving a bit later, after 7:30, is an option too!

Hongdae Hwadeok Pizza interior and seating

The interior has wood-toned decor with soft yellow lighting, so it feels cozy and warm. It was lively with people, but more pleasantly bustling than noisy, so it was fine for chatting over a meal.

What stood out most was the wall covered in Polaroid photos! Pictures of past guests are lined up, and some are from quite a few years back, so you can feel how long Hongdae Hwadeok Pizza has been loved in Hapjeong.

There's also a big wood-fired oven on one side of the restaurant, where you can watch the pizzas being baked 🔥

The seating is quite varied, so it looked fine for get-togethers with friends or small groups too.

You order on the tablet at each table, which was convenient, and I saw quite a few foreign guests, and I hear there's an English menu as well 🌎

Hongdae Hwadeok Pizza menu and half-and-half

Hongdae Hwadeok Pizza has a wide menu of salads, cream, oil and tomato pastas, and wood-fired pizzas, and you can choose half-and-half to get two flavors on one pizza. The signature dish is Gamberi Crema, a shrimp cream pasta.

The menu was honestly much more varied than I expected. The salads include unusual items like the Cloud Bread Salad (구름빵 샐러드), where you wrap cream cheese and vegetables in aged dough bread, and the pastas are spread evenly across cream, oil and tomato bases. The pizzas, such as Margherita, Diavola, Quattro Formaggi and Manjo, were so numerous it was hard to choose, and I loved that half-and-half lets you pick two flavors! (You can change it in the options after choosing a pizza.)

💡 Signature dish: Gamberi Crema (shrimp cream pasta)

💡 What we ordered: half-and-half pizza (Patata Dolce + Manjo), Gamberi Crema penne, orange ade

Food and service at Hongdae Hwadeok Pizza

Hongdae Hwadeok Pizza keeps the pizza warm on a warmer on the table, and the pasta comes in the pan, so it stayed hot until we finished. Even with a full house on Saturday evening, the food came out quickly.

Even with that many guests on a weekend evening, the food came out faster than I expected, so there was no boring wait :)

🍊 Orange ade: an unexpected find made with blended fresh oranges

Let me start with the orange ade, which came out first. Honestly I ordered it without expecting much, but it was the most unexpected discovery of this visit! I heard they blend the oranges themselves at Hongdae Hwadeok Pizza.

From the first sip, you taste real orange rather than syrup, and there's even a faint orange-peel aroma, so I thought, "Wow, this is really fresh fruit." Thanks to that slightly bitter peel note, the finish is clean and fresh, which made it perfect for cleansing the palate between bites of pizza and pasta 🧡

🍝 Gamberi Crema penne: the signature shrimp cream pasta

As befits the signature dish, it passed on looks alone. Plump shrimp and mushrooms in a cream pasta are topped with cheese and baked once more in the oven, and the cheese was melted to a golden brown, which made my mouth water on sight.

You can choose penne or spaghetti, and we went with penne. The thick, rich cream sauce soaked into the holes of the penne, so every bite was deep and nutty. The mushroom aroma spread gently through the sauce, and the shrimp were springy and plump.

The cream sauce has a slight kick, but it's not spicy, just enough to cut the richness, so anyone can enjoy it. If you like cream pasta, please try it. I strongly recommend the penne!

🍕 Half-and-half ① Patata Dolce: sweet-and-salty sweet potato mousse pizza

This was my pick! Patata Dolce is a pizza with smooth, sweet sweet-potato mousse topped with bacon, cherry tomatoes and cheese dressing,

The sweetness of the sweet potato spreads in the first bite, followed by the saltiness of the bacon, which makes it the textbook sweet-and-salty combo. The cherry tomatoes burst here and there with freshness, so it isn't just sweet and the balance was good. If you like sweet potato pizza, you'll definitely love it 🍠

🍕 Half-and-half ② Manjo: a wood-fired take on bulgogi pizza

Manjo is a tomato-sauce-based pizza topped with thinly sliced beef, onion and bell pepper. Basically, think of it as a wood-fired bulgogi (marinated beef) pizza?

The beef was juicy, and the crunchy onion and pepper made the texture fun. Thanks to the tang of the tomato sauce, alternating with the sweet Patata Dolce meant we never got tired of it. My husband and I were both proud of how well we chose this half-and-half combo, haha.

🔥 Hongdae Hwadeok Pizza dough and cheese

What I liked about both pizzas was the dough! They say it's kneaded and aged in-house, and baked in the wood-fired oven it was nutty with a slightly charred edge outside and chewy inside. The cheese wasn't the budget cheese you get at ordinary pizza places but natural cheese, so everything from the stretchy texture to the rich flavor was great.

Hongdae Hwadeok Pizza verdict: highlights and who it suits

What I liked most at Hongdae Hwadeok Pizza were the house-kneaded, aged wood-fired dough, the half-and-half ordering, and the fresh orange ade.

• Chewy wood-fired dough, kneaded and aged in-house
• Half-and-half ordering, so you get two flavors at once!
• The signature Gamberi Crema, with sauce soaked into the penne
• Fresh orange ade made from blended oranges
• A cozy, warm atmosphere full of Polaroids

🙆‍♀️ Recommended for

• Couples and married pairs looking for a nice date spot around Hapjeong, Hongdae and Sangsu
• Anyone who finds one pizza flavor not enough and wants to taste a bit of everything
• Fans of sweet-and-salty pizza like sweet potato pizza
• People who want a tasty drink instead of alcohol
• Groups of friends looking for a place to eat and chat comfortably

Sharing a freshly baked wood-fired pizza under warm lights on a cool autumn evening somehow made the day feel nicely wrapped up 🍂 I also liked eating slowly and chatting about this and that with my husband for the first time in a while. I think of Hongdae Hwadeok Pizza as "a dependable Hapjeong wood-fired pizza spot that's loved for a long time for good reason." If you have a date around Hapjeong or Hongdae, do stop by :) And if it's a weekend evening, don't forget to reserve!