Large café in Sutonggol, Daejeon for a baby's first outing: Luonto

Hi, this is Party. My baby is nearly at the 100-day mark and has started getting vaccinations, so I've slowly been taking her out. We've been to the mart, the hospital, and restaurants together, but never a café — so this time I decided to give a café a try.

Since I have a baby with me, I naturally started looking into large-scale cafés. That led me to <Luonto Sutonggol Branch>, which I'm introducing today.

• Address: 37 Sutonggol-ro 71beon-gil, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, South Korea (Café Secret Garden building)
• Hours: 11:00–21:00 (last order 20:00)
• Regular closed days: Monday, Tuesday

What kind of café is Luonto Sutonggol Branch? The former Secret Garden site

<Luonto>, a well-known chimney bread spot in Yuseong-gu, is the new name for what used to be Café Secret Garden. It's connected to a restaurant next door too. There's plenty of parking, so it's easy to reach by car.

Luonto's menu: two chimney breads and house-roasted coffee

<Luonto>, a chimney bread favorite in Yuseong-gu, offers two flavors — plain and cinnamon — plus ice cream as a dessert. They use in-house roasted beans: if you like a nutty flavor, go for the Luonto blend, and if you prefer acidity, try the Geisha blend. We ordered two iced Americanos, cinnamon chimney bread, and Sanghamokjang ice cream!

Along with the cute chimney bread decorations, they also sell house-baked cookies. The photo on the right shows dried sweet potato and rice puffs — it reminded me of our puppy Ddeogi (though she was right next to me the whole time haha). I bet someday soon she'll be begging me for those rice puffs too.

Floors 1 to 3, and the outdoor area off the 2nd floor

This large-scale café in Sutonggol, <Luonto>, has seating from the 1st to the 3rd floor, giving it a comfortable, cozy atmosphere. On top of the indoor seating, there's also outdoor space, as shown in the photos below. You go up to the 2nd floor and through a door that leads outside to enjoy it.

On a hot day like this, it might be a bit much to use, but once the weather cools down a little, you could enjoy the romance of a coffee in the fresh Sutonggol breeze~!

First-birthday parties and outdoor weddings on Luonto's terrace

They said this outdoor terrace can also be used for first-birthday parties (doljanchi) and outdoor weddings. I'm already married so an outdoor wedding is off the table for me, but Ddeogi's birthday is in May, so maybe I should consider an outdoor doljanchi for her.

How to order at Luonto, and the whipped cream that comes with chimney bread

After enjoying the outdoor space, our menu was ready. When it's ready, a buzzer goes off and you pick it up on the 1st floor. Chimney bread comes with whipped cream as standard, and you can ask for more if it's not enough. We didn't add extra since we wanted to dip it in both whipped cream and ice cream.

How Luonto's cinnamon chimney bread tastes: like a Czech Christmas market

Here's the cinnamon chimney bread with whipped cream. If you tear it along the lines you can see, following the grain, it's chewy and you get the sweet aroma of cinnamon at the same time. Back when I was a college student traveling in the Czech Republic one winter, they sold this exact chimney bread alongside mulled wine at the Christmas market. The freshly made, hot chimney bread on a cold day left a real impression on me, and <Luonto>'s cinnamon chimney bread is every bit as good.

Chimney bread is made fresh the moment you order it, and since it tastes best hot, I'd recommend eating it as soon as possible after you get it.

A plastic glove with six fingers?

They also give you a plastic glove so you don't get your hands dirty eating the chimney bread, and surprisingly, it has six fingers? It turns out there's a slit down the middle, so you only use your thumb, index, and middle fingers to tear the bread without getting your hands sticky — a really clever little idea!

Chimney bread dipped in Sangha Farm ice cream

This is the Sanghamokjang ice cream, and it looks so good. The milk flavor is really rich and nutty without being too sweet, so it goes down easily without ever feeling cloying. It's great on its own and just as great with bread dipped in it.

We tried dipping the bread in both the whipped cream and the ice cream. Dipped in whipped cream, it felt like a classic combo, similar to dipping baguette in cream; dipped in the Sanghamokjang ice cream, the contrast of warm chimney bread and cold ice cream was great. Since the Sanghamokjang ice cream has a high milk content, its rich milk flavor was actually pretty similar to the whipped cream. Conclusion: both are delicious!

A dessert café for after a meal in Sutonggol

That was my introduction to <Luonto>, the large-scale café in Sutonggol, Yuseong-gu. Chimney bread isn't a super common dessert, so it was a great experience to find such a high-quality version here at <Luonto>. The coffee made from their in-house roasted beans was excellent too, in both aroma and flavor. If you're eating in Sutonggol and want a good café for dessert afterward, I recommend <Luonto Sutonggol Branch>~!