Songpa jazz restaurant 200-day date: spritz by the stage at Allegro

This time I went out for a special dinner with my boyfriend to celebrate our 200th day together. Normally we're happy just eating good food, but since it was an anniversary, I wanted a place with great atmosphere too. That's how I found Allegro in Jamsil.

Allegro is a place where you can enjoy Italian dining while watching a live jazz performance. There's a jazz show every evening, and the lineup changes daily, so even the same venue feels different depending on when you visit. It felt especially fitting for an anniversary, so we chose it for our 200-day date, and I was so, so satisfied that I wanted to write this review.

Where Allegro is in Songpa, and its opening hours

Allegro is on the 3rd floor of a building on Olympic-ro 32-gil, between Jamsil and Bangi-dong. It's about a 15-minute walk from Olympic Park and about 10 minutes from Seokchon Lake, so it's easy to explore the neighborhood before or after your meal.

That day, before dinner we had a picnic at Olympic Park and took some photos, and afterward we walked around Seokchon Lake and Lotte Mall in Jamsil. Since it was our 200-day date, we planned to have dinner and watch the jazz show too. The restaurant is on the 3rd floor of the building, so if it's your first visit, make sure you're at the right building before heading up.

<Hours> Closed every Tuesday / Mon-Sun (except Tue) 12:00-23:00 / Break time 15:00-18:00 / Last order 21:30

On the 1st floor of the building there's a menu board along with a sign for the lunchtime happy hour — ₩16,000 pasta menu and 15% off food items — so if you're planning a lunch visit, that's worth keeping in mind.

There's an elevator in the building, so people with knee trouble should have no problem getting up :)

Allegro's jazz lineup changes every day

Allegro has a jazz performance every day, but the band and lineup change depending on the date. So it's a good idea to check Allegro's Instagram beforehand to see who's playing that day.

The show starts daily at 19:30 and runs as a 40-minute set → 30-minute break → 40-minute set. On the day we visited, a band called Oitdu Oitdu performed.

Inside Allegro: atmosphere and seating

Allegro has both hall seating and outdoor terrace seating; we sat in the hall that day. The interior lighting was fairly low overall, but each table had its own small lamp, which actually made the mood even better. Visiting in the evening especially, the combination of the dim room, table lighting, and stage lighting gave it a much more atmospheric feel than a typical pasta place.

There were quite a lot of couples the day we visited too. Since you can enjoy dinner while watching a jazz show, it seems like a lot of people come here for anniversaries or dates, like we did.

A staff member showed us to our seats, and we got lucky — we were seated right in front of the jazz stage. Being able to watch the performance up close let us really soak in the atmosphere that night.

Allegro's menu and what a meal costs

The menu had more variety than I expected. There are mains like pasta, gnocchi, and steak, and lighter side dishes like salads or french fries.

So even if you're not going for a full sit-down dinner, it seems like a fine spot to drop by lightly for a second round after dinner elsewhere.

They also had wine — red, white, and sparkling, available by the bottle or glass — plus drinks like whiskey and orange juice on the menu. Since there were two of us, we ordered several items.

• Sous-vide pork shoulder steak ₩33,000
• Amatriciana ₩19,000
• Feta cheese citrus salad ₩18,000
• Spritz ₩13,000

We ordered a salad, a steak, and a pasta, and the portions were quite generous for two people to share.

Restrooms inside the restaurant, mouthwash included

One thing I personally liked was that the restroom is located inside the restaurant. It wasn't a shared unisex restroom either — men's and women's were separate, and the interior was kept clean. It was convenient not having to step outside the restaurant to use it during the meal.

There was even mouthwash provided in the restroom. Since dishes like pasta or steak can leave a lingering smell, and you go right back to watching the jazz show afterward, I appreciated this kind of small attention to detail. These basic facilities actually matter quite a bit when you're visiting for a date or anniversary. This was one part I was pretty satisfied with too.

What we ordered for our 200-day dinner

Spritz, 13,000 won

We're not big drinkers, so we ordered just one spritz as an aperitif. A spritz is a wine-based cocktail popular in Italy. The alcohol smell felt a bit stronger than I expected, but it was still nice as a light drink before the food arrived, and since the whole vibe of the place is about slowly enjoying a meal while watching jazz, it worked well as an aperitif.

Feta cheese citrus salad, 18,000 won

The salad had grapefruit and orange in it, so it was really refreshing. Between the heavier pasta and steak, eating fruit and salad in between made my mouth feel cleaner — the combination of feta cheese with grapefruit and orange worked especially well together. If you're ordering multiple dishes to share like we did, I'd recommend adding a salad too.

Amatriciana, 19,000 won

The dish I enjoyed the most that day was the amatriciana. We ordered several things, but this was personally my favorite. Maybe it's because I like pasta in general, but the combination of sauce and noodles was so good I kept going back for more. Eating it slowly while watching the jazz performance let me enjoy the meal more leisurely than usual. If you're looking for Italian food in Jamsil and want atmosphere on top of it, I'd suggest trying a pasta dish.

Sous-vide pork shoulder steak, 33,000 won

The pork shoulder steak came with french fries. Because it was cooked sous-vide, it had a different feel from a typical steak. What I liked most was the somewhat unusual sauce that came with it. It went well with both the meat and the fries, and adding a steak like this on top of the pasta made the meal feel much more substantial than just ordering pasta alone. If two people are visiting, I'd recommend one pasta, one steak, plus a salad.

What the Oitdu Oitdu jazz set was like

And the biggest reason we came to Allegro — the jazz performance! We arrived around 7pm, and just as the dishes started coming out one by one, it happened to be showtime. So we got to eat while watching the jazz performance together. On the day we visited, a band called Oitdu Oitdu played.

At first I thought it would just be background music while we ate, but sitting there and actually listening, the atmosphere was so much better than I expected. The dim interior lighting combined with the individual table lamps matched the jazz performance really well. If we'd just eaten pasta, it would have been an ordinary dinner, but watching the show alongside it made for a night we'll definitely remember. Neither my boyfriend nor I had ever been to a jazz performance restaurant like this before, and with good food and a great atmosphere, it really felt like an anniversary — it was genuinely wonderful.

Allegro's show fee and how the performance works

At Allegro, ordering one menu item per person is required, and there's a separate show fee — ₩10,000 per person on weekdays and ₩15,000 per person on Fridays and Saturdays — so keep that in mind :)

Is Allegro a good anniversary restaurant near Jamsil?

Visiting Allegro to celebrate 200 days with my boyfriend, it felt different from a typical Italian restaurant where you just go for the food. Being able to enjoy pasta and steak alongside a live jazz performance made it feel like a great spot for a date or anniversary.

Arriving around 7pm like we did, the timing of the food and the show flowed together naturally, which made it easy to enjoy both the meal and the performance. It's about a 15-minute walk from Olympic Park and about 10 minutes from Seokchon Lake, so it's also a good stop after spending time in the area on a date. If you want atmosphere along with your food, a place like this is well worth considering.

Above all, maybe because we visited on such a special day — our 200th — having a great meal and watching a jazz show made it feel far more memorable than an ordinary dinner. Next time, I'd want to check the day's jazz lineup first and go back on a day when a band I really like is playing.