Suwon dessert café for chocolate Basque cheesecake: Jo Hui-tak Coffee

After weekend lunch, Stella suddenly said, “Mom, I want delicious chocolate cake!” haha. So I looked for a dessert café near Ajou University and ended up at Jo Hui-tak Coffee (조희탁커피). Since it is tucked into the university area, I initially wondered where we would park, but using the nearby Uman 2-dong Public Parking Lot made the visit easier than I expected.

Jo Hui-tak Coffee location and seating

Jo Hui-tak Coffee is close to Ajou University’s main gate and just a short walk from the Uman 2-dong Public Parking Lot, so visiting by car did not feel like much of a hassle.

From the outside, I wondered if the café might be small, but once inside, the space went farther back than expected and had lots of seating.

Along with regular tables, there were seats that looked great for studying alone or using a laptop. It definitely felt like a café in a university neighborhood.

There were seats with outlets, and the space was used well, with everything from spots for one person to tables for several people. Since I visited with Stella and worried we might disturb anyone quietly studying, we sat at the bar seats near the outside.

A wide range of desserts, from cake to sando

Jo Hui-tak Coffee had coffee and a variety of drinks, but especially so many desserts. I almost lost my mind looking at them all haha.

Jo Hui-tak Coffee makes desserts such as cakes and sando (Japanese-style fruit sandwiches) by hand, and it also runs a separate bakery research lab, so it really felt like a café that puts a lot of care into dessert. The desserts in the display all looked high quality, too.

I came for one piece of chocolate cake, but from sando and fresh cream cake to Basque cheesecake, salt bread, egg tarts, cookies, and financiers, there were far too many things I wanted to try. There were several kinds of fruit sando in particular, so I thought I absolutely had to come back for one next time. The fresh cream cakes looked so good that I debated for a while, too.

The biggest shame was that we had eaten such a filling lunch that we could not try several thingsㅠㅠ

Chocolate Basque cheesecake and iced Americano

That day, we ordered chocolate Basque cheesecake and an iced Americano. Stella wanted chocolate cake, so we chose it, and I was happy after trying a bite too. The chocolate Basque cheesecake had the dense texture characteristic of Basque cheesecake, with chocolate sweetness added in.

It was not as sweet as I expected, and the rich cheese flavor worked really well with the chocolate. It was not a cake that was simply sweet; it had a slightly weighty, intense flavor that made it even better with coffee.

To my taste, the coffee had a balanced acidity and nuttiness, which neatly cut through the cake’s sweetness.

It is a café with delicious desserts, and the coffee was good too, so I was even more satisfied.

And our Stella... she had definitely just eaten lunch until she was bursting, but she finished that chocolate Basque cheesecake in no time hahaha. I guess kids really do have a separate dessert stomach.

It had been a while since I found a dessert café near Ajou University that made me think, “They really know how to do desserts here.” Next time, I am going back for sando and salt bread. (That time... I should bring my laptop and enjoy some peaceful time alone haha.)

You can receive a chocolate chip cookie by joining the Naver review event, and with one drink order per person, one Americano refill is also available, so keep that in mind if you visit. If you are looking for a café near Ajou University that does desserts such as cake or sando properly, I recommend Jo Hui-tak Coffee :)