Noksapyeong Mediterranean restaurant, octopus set menu: Villa de Blue

Today's post is about Villa de Blue, a place I found while looking for a Haebangchon date restaurant. I'd seen it on Instagram Reels before and really wanted to go — finally made it happen, haha!

Where is Villa de Blue Haebangchon? A Haebangchon alley near Noksapyeong Station

Villa de Blue Haebangchon is close to Noksapyeong Station, so it's a perfect stop if you're moving on from hanging out in Itaewon. I've been to Haebangchon a few times before, but this area always feels so exotic that I keep wanting to come back.

Since it's close to Noksapyeong Station, it's a perfect stop after hanging out in Itaewon.

The Haebangchon alley is lined with good restaurants, and they all have great atmosphere. Among them, I went to Villa de Blue, an Italian-Mediterranean spot.

Inside Villa de Blue Haebangchon with the windows open in autumn

It's fall weather these days, and Villa de Blue Haebangchon had its windows wide open, which made it perfect for eating while enjoying the outside air.

If you're looking for a date spot in Haebangchon, the vibe here should work well. There were actually a lot of couples there.

Weekday evening reservations and seating at Villa de Blue Haebangchon

I visited on a weekday evening and the reserved tables were already full. It's probably best to book ahead if you're going during a popular time.

Most of the tables were for two, with one four-person table. The interior feels like something between Greece and Italy!

There's also a bar table, so if you want to focus on drinks or conversation, sitting there works well too.

Choosing from the Villa de Blue Haebangchon menu

Let's look at the menu, shall we? There was everything from set menus to individual dishes.

The aligot cheese lasagna is apparently famous! It's known for that waterfall-of-French-cheese visual. The gorgonzola cream gnocchi looked good too, and I was curious about the Nerano calamarata pasta. Seems like a place that's good at both pasta and gnocchi.

Still deciding what to eat... I heard the octopus dishes are great too, so I wanted to try one of those. We ended up ordering the polpo mambo, and I genuinely loved it — more on the taste below. I also wanted the gnocchi fritts, and luckily there was a set menu, so we went with that!

They also sell a variety of alcohol. With this atmosphere, it would make a pretty good spot for a blind date too — maybe not the first meeting, but the second or third? Your odds of success would go up!

Drinking felt like an odd choice for the day, so I went with lemonade!

Here comes the fizzy lemonade! It was so refreshing I drank it fast.

At this point we were deep into a conversation about weird stories, haha — saying this place feels like somewhere Jonathan and Nancy would come to, while the pizza place across the street felt more like Jim Hopper and Joyce's spot, lol. That's the kind of talk we were having.

What do the gnocchi fritts taste like?

The gnocchi fritts arrived! It's fried gnocchi, and I'd been curious to try it at least once. Sort of like fried rice cake — chewy and easy to eat. It had an exotic flavor.

Polpo mambo: octopus and peas

The polpo mambo arrived too! Wow, everything from the peas to the octopus was delicious.

The lasagna hadn't even come out yet and the food was already this good — fully satisfied.

The octopus was incredibly tender. The octopus-and-potato combo was great, and even the peas were delicious (I'm someone who hates beans!). It reminded me of an octopus dish I had in Portugal.

For me, this place is Spain and Portugal and Italy all at once...!

How the aligot cheese lasagna tastes

And then the lasagna arrived! As you can see in the video, since it's made by mixing cheese and potato, it stretches like crazy. It reminded me of raclette.

Because the cheese is mixed with potato, it wasn't greasy at all and was really tasty. I'm honestly not that big a fan of lasagna usually, but oh — this one's different. It had plenty of meat, and that typical ground-meat smell was much less noticeable.

Eating little by little while chatting with the person across from me made the time fly. It was one of the best times I've had in a while.

Finishing with vanilla ice cream and olive oil

At the end, we finished with vanilla ice cream drizzled with olive oil, haha. Totally worth it! If you're looking for a Haebangchon date restaurant, Villa de Blue would be a great choice. I'm planning to go back myself :)