Hongdae brunch café for salmon eggs Benedict and Naver booking: MELA

Where is MELA Hongdae?

A visit to MELA, a brunch café between Hongdae and Hapjeong.

MELA is a chain, but a friend of mine raved about it so much that I made a Naver reservation and went. Parking is available, and the building MELA is in is genuinely beautiful.

MELA Hongdae hours and parking

MELA is open daily from 9:00 AM to 6:30 PM, with last order at 6:00 PM! Parking support gives you 1 hour free, then ₩800 per additional 10 minutes.

There's a full brunch menu, main dishes, and café items too. It's a currently hot brunch café — after eating there, I understood the hype 200 percent. Highly, highly recommend!!

Interior and seating at MELA Hongdae

A spacious, comfortable interior. With an open kitchen you can see right into, there's plenty of seating — solo seats, tables, group seating. After confirming my reservation, I was told to sit wherever I liked, so I picked a spot in the back corner. There were tons of foreign customers.

The interior is stylish too, and you can tell care went into every corner.

You grab a seat, check the menu, then go to the counter to order and pay upfront. Seems like most places run this system these days. It feels clean and efficient, honestly.

Main dishes, all-day brunch, salads, café menu — the full brunch café package. What made this brunch feel so good was that, on top of being reeeeally delicious, the staff were so kind it turned into a genuinely happy lunch!

MELA Hongdae brunch menu and prices

First I picked my dishes, then went straight to the counter to order. We got MELA's signature brunch plate for ₩22,000, salmon eggs Benedict for ₩22,000, a chocolate chip cookie for ₩4,000, and a zero cola for ₩3,500. I was craving coffee too, but I've got another café spot already staked out, so I passed!

The morning special menu (available 9:00 to 11:00 AM) looks super generous. We got there after 1 PM so we couldn't order it — a bit of a bummer. Anyway, the staff were incredibly kind, and this was the tastiest meal I've had at a brunch café in a while!

What does the name MELA mean?

I learned while flipping through the menu waiting for our food that mela means "apple" in Italian. The brand was created with the idea of choosing good ingredients and making delicious food with the same care you'd give family. Good stuff.

Whoa... the food came out way faster than expected, which caught me off guard! And the plating was so pretty, another surprise. A brunch café that just puts you in a good mood.

How is the salmon eggs Benedict?

The salmon eggs Benedict is completely lovable! I made everyone wait a second while shouting "Hold on!" and snapping photos.

Since it was our first visit, we ordered both of the signature dishes, and it was a great choice. The food looks so pretty that no matter how you shoot it, the photo can't come out bad.

The cookie came out warm too. So we did another group shot, then an overhead shot... and now, time to actually eat! Haha.

Eat the vegetables, break the poached egg over everything. Underneath were two slices of sourdough-like bread — a really wholesome fermented loaf that paired perfectly.

There was more salmon than I expected, and the vegetables were fresh, so piling it all onto the bread and eating it together was seriously good!

The signature brunch plate, 22,000 won

For the signature brunch plate, the roasted vegetables — sweet pumpkin, potato, lotus root — were all evenly cooked, and their natural sweetness came through. Piling avocado, cheese, and an egg-potato salad dressing onto the ciabatta-style bread to make an open sandwich was ridiculously delicious!

Water, knives, and forks are self-serve. This photo was taken again on our way out. I want to keep praising a café this good... Above all, the staff were so kind that we got to enjoy a genuinely happy lunch.

One more shot of the entrance on the way out. Something about the place already felt like Christmas. A relaxed, unhurried brunch on an ordinary day...