Seoul department store cake shop, cooler bag subway pickup: Chef Cho

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Where is Chef Cho? Sweety Park, basement floor 1 of Shinsegae Gangnam

After work I headed straight to Shinsegae Department Store Gangnam to pick up the cake I'd reserved.

The place I was going to find that day was Chef Cho, a well-known cake shop in Sweety Park in Gangnam.

I just followed the Sweety Park • House of Shinsegae signs. Chef Cho is inside Sweety Park at Shinsegae Department Store Gangnam, so you just head to the dessert corner on the basement floor. There are so many dessert shops that you'll arrive in no time just window-shopping along the way 🍰

I'd heard Chef Cho's pâtissier appeared on a TV show about craftspeople, so I was curious to check it out.

When I actually got there, all sorts of cakes topped with fresh fruit — figs, mango and more — were lined up on display.

There was even a bit of a line for cake when I visited, so more people are drawn here than I expected.

Chef Cho cake lineup: Real Mango Rose, Peach Berry, Whole Chocolate Strawberry

From the rose-shaped Real Mango Rose to Peach Berry 🍑🥭, the fruit was piled on so generously that the cakes caught my eye purely on looks.

The peach-and-strawberry topped one was the prettiest to me, so I picked Peach Berry without a second thought. A cake's looks matter too, haha.

There was also a Whole Chocolate Strawberry cake made with 52% cacao — if you're a chocolate person that one might give you pause too, haha.

There were also plenty of fresh fruit slice cakes using seasonal fruit and ingredients like fig and pistachio, all on display.

They sell slices as well as No.1 and No.2 whole cakes, so if a whole cake feels like too much, trying a slice first isn't a bad idea.

Peach Berry No.1 price, the 2,500 won cooler bag, and the subway ride home

After a bit of waiting, I picked up my reserved Peach Berry No.1 cake. The price was ₩53,000, and

since I had to carry it all the way home, I added a cooler bag too — ₩2,500. I carried the cake onto the subway to my parents' place, and this is where things got a little awkward, haha. I figured the cooler bag would be enough, but the subway air was warmer than I expected, and condensation had built up slightly around the cake box.

Still, the cake hadn't melted or collapsed, which was a relief.

How Chef Cho's Peach Berry tastes: firm peach, summer strawberry, dairy cream

True to its name, Peach Berry is topped with peach and strawberry. The peach was the hard, crunchy kind I love, and having summer strawberries on top these days was a nice surprise, haha. With strawberry and peach together, the color was pretty too, and thanks to that bright fruity flavor, the cream cake didn't feel heavy at all.

Honestly I picked it purely for looks, so I wasn't expecting much from the taste, but the cream and sponge were better than I thought. The fruit was piled on generously too, so it looked great and the fruit flavor really came through with every bite 👍

Maybe because it uses dairy cream, the cream was soft and not as greasy, and the sponge wasn't dry either, so it went well with the fruit. Sometimes fruit cakes are all about the fruit while the sponge and cream are just average, but Chef Cho's cake had a good overall balance across cream and sponge too.

Being a No.1 size, it was just right as a family dessert, and if you're a fan of cakes topped with fresh fruit, Peach Berry is a solid choice.

Summer cake pickup tips and Chef Cho as a Chuseok gift

That said, if you're picking up a cake in summer, I'd recommend keeping the travel time short even with a cooler bag. I took the subway and it turned out hotter than expected, so condensation formed!

Chef Cho really is a Gangnam cake shop worth knowing. With so much fruit piled on, the cakes look great and would work well as a Chuseok gift too. The Chuseok packaging in particular was done nicely, making it good for gift-giving — if you're after a Chuseok gift that's different from the usual fruit basket, this cake is worth considering. I'd recommend it as a gift too.