Jongno 3-ga bakery donating leftovers: coffee, peanut & sesame, Munhwa

I was in Jongno and heard about a famous bakery that only does takeout, so I stopped by Munhwa Bakery (문화제빵). I went early, but customers kept coming in, including plenty of foreign visitors. Since it's takeout only, the inside isn't big, so you may have to wait.

Where is Munhwa Bakery, and what are the hours?

Munhwa Bakery is at 65 Donhwamun-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul, on the 1st floor. Come out of Jongno 3-ga Station Exit 3 or 6, walk down the lovely tree-lined street, and you'll run into it!

Munhwa Bakery is open daily from 11:00 to 20:00. It's takeout only, and parking is difficult.

Munhwa Bakery's exterior and interior

Maybe because it's in Jongno 3-ga, the outside is styled like a hanok (traditional Korean house) with tiled eaves, and it was so pretty. It seemed like a great spot for a photo, and foreign tourists really were taking lots of pictures there.

Inside, there's just the bread display and the register. You line up, pick your bread and pay, and that's the whole flow.

The kitchen in the back keeps making bread and adding it to the shelves. Watching them bake in real time made me trust the place more, and made the bread look even tastier!

What does Munhwa Bakery do with leftover bread?

Munhwa Bakery sells only bread made that day, and says it gives the day's leftovers to people in need: children who miss meals, seniors living alone, people with disabilities living at home, free meal programs, homeless shelters and social welfare facilities.

Customers can trust they're getting fresh bread, and the rest goes to people who need it, so buying bread here felt good haha.

Munhwa Bakery menu and prices

Breads ranged from ₩3,500 to ₩6,800. This was the menu when I visited:

• Garlic bread ₩6,800
• Coffee bread ₩5,800
• Rice chestnut loaf (쌀밤식빵) ₩5,800
• Rice cheese loaf (쌀치즈식빵) ₩5,900
• Maple cream cheese bread ₩4,900
• Walnut bread ₩3,500
• White red-bean-paste bread ₩3,800
• Sweet potato bread ₩3,800
• Onion bagel ₩6,000
• Squid-ink condensed milk bread ₩4,500
• Cheese bread ₩5,400
• Mugwort rice cake bread ₩5,700
• Peanut bread ₩3,800
• Injeolmi (roasted soybean powder rice cake) bread ₩3,800

Everything looked so good that, as a bread lover, I had a hard time choosing.

After some agonizing, I bought three: coffee bread, peanut bread and black sesame bread. I like all of these, so my expectations were high.

How does Munhwa Bakery's coffee bread taste?

The coffee bread was a long, soft loaf, and they cut it into bite-size pieces for me.

Inside is coffee-flavored cream, and the top is covered with something like coffee-flavored sponge cake crumbs.

The coffee aroma hit me the moment I opened the bag, and when I ate it the coffee scent filled everything from my nose to my mouth. It was nicely sweet, not cloying, so I could keep eating it.

How does Munhwa Bakery's peanut bread taste?

The peanut bread was piled generously with peanuts on top. It held its shape more than the coffee bread, and had peanut cream inside.

Maybe because of the heaps of peanuts on top plus the peanut cream, the peanut aroma kept rising the whole time I ate.

Peanut cream can be too sweet or too heavy, but this one wasn't heavy or too sweet, which I liked!

How does Munhwa Bakery's black sesame bread taste?

The black sesame bread is coated in black-sesame-flavored sponge cake crumbs, so it looks a lot like black sesame rice cake.

But the texture was much softer than rice cake, and with black sesame cream inside, biting in was even softer.

The black sesame scent was strong, which was perfect for me since I love it.

Verdict on the three breads at Munhwa Bakery

The coffee, peanut and black sesame breads were all exactly my taste. None of them was too much in flavor, aroma or texture, so I kept reaching for more.

They were also all generous, bigger than the bread you'd normally imagine! Even one was filling haha. If you're ever in Jongno, stop by Munhwa Bakery near Jongno 3-ga and try some tasty bread!