Egg mayo salted bread at Childish, a Seongsu dessert café in Seoul

Rice flour and 100% unsalted butter, crispy-outside-soft-inside salted bread in every variety, plus the signature menu!! The reason Seongsu dessert spot Childish and its must-try, great-value mango bingsu are a Seongsu café recommendation!!

Two couples visit Childish, a dessert café in Seongsu-dong

Childish is said to be the hottest dessert spot in Seongsu-dong these days. I took Friday off for a car checkup, spent Saturday on pre-inspections and picking out appliances, had dinner with a close younger couple friend in the evening, and on Sunday finally made it to this café known as a Seongsu dessert spot — a hectic weekend all around. As someone who loves travel, camping and good food, this kind of busy schedule is pretty familiar to me though ^^ We went with my wife and the younger couple we're really close with in the neighborhood.

We went in with high expectations since it's already the talk of the town, and to cut to the chase — we came out having inhaled dessert at a truly legendary level. Our stomachs felt like they'd burst, but our mouths just wouldn't stop! Haha. It's a well-known dessert spot among locals too, and there were quite a few foreign customers, so you could really feel just how famous this café already is.

Where is Childish in Seongsu?

Childish is on the 2nd floor of 114 Yeonmujang-gil, Seongdong-gu, Seoul. It's a bit removed from the main Seongsu-dong commercial strip, tucked in an alley facing Konkuk University's lamb skewer street — which made me wonder, how do people even find this place so well? Haha.

Childish's signature menu: salted bread and salted taiyaki

At Seongsu dessert spot Childish, salted bread and taiyaki (fish-shaped bread) are the signature items. The salted bread alone comes in so many varieties that picking is half the fun — though honestly, our group didn't so much pick as just order everything, haha.

Seongsu dessert spot Childish uses rice flour and 100% unsalted butter for a low-gluten salted bread, so the dough itself stands apart from the start. With a rice flour base that cuts back on wheat and 100% milk-fat unsalted butter, the inside stays moist with rich, nutty flavor — and the appeal is that it doesn't sit heavy afterward.

Which drinks we ordered at Childish

A clean drink is a must with sweet desserts!! We each ordered to our own taste: iced Americano, the signature-feeling cream coffee, a smooth vanilla latte, and a no-sugar iced tea for something light.

Inside Childish: the second-floor space

Inside Childish there are all sorts of charming little props, right down to cute taiyaki-shaped keyrings.

The café's concept isn't entirely clear, but there's a sort of small-garden feel collaborating with the salted bread theme?? Something like that.

Five kinds of salted bread we tried

There's no coming to Childish without trying the salted taiyaki series.

Seeing the salted breads neatly lined up on the display case made it impossible to hold back, haha. We thoroughly tasted our way through the lineup: cute mini salted bread, the rich jambon-beurre salted bread, the nutty-explosion egg mayo salted bread, the classic sweet-and-salty butter-red bean salted bread, and the ultimate crunch, salted bread rusk. Soft as if fresh from the oven, with that salty-savory flavor, they paired perfectly with coffee.

Three salted taiyaki flavors compared

The saltiness of the salted bread meeting the crunch of taiyaki looked incredible even before the first bite — the original salted taiyaki strikes a perfect balance between the nutty flavor unique to crispy-outside-soft-inside salted bread and the crunchy exterior.

The cheese bacon potato sweet potato pizza salted taiyaki is so loaded with ingredients it's hard to even remember the full name. It's the textbook definition of sweet-and-salty, with insane flavor. The mammoth chewy salted taiyaki adds the mammoth bread's signature sweetness and chewy texture, filling your mouth with happiness. All three had such distinct charms that we couldn't give up any one of them ^^

Ube bingsu sold out: mango bingsu instead

We'd wanted to try the Filipino ube bingsu, but it was sold out — today's twist!! The final highlight was mango bingsu. With no condensed milk at all, made from snow-flake ice frozen using 100% pure milk and piled high with fresh mango, it was clean yet richly nutty, cutting right through the richness of everything else we'd eaten.

If you're looking for a truly special, properly made dessert café in Seongsu-dong, I strongly recommend Childish for its rice flour salted bread and distinctive salted taiyaki! It's the perfect spot to share good food with good people and lots of laughter. That's my visit report from this Seongsu café — stuffed full but happy, thanks to all the different salted breads and the mango bingsu that kept our mouths entertained!