Seoul café near Hongdae with three sand cookies: Butter & Shelter

Today I'm posting about a Yeonnam-dong sand cookie spot with great vibes and even better dessert — Butter & Shelter Yeonnam!

Where is Butter & Shelter Yeonnam, and when is it open?

Butter & Shelter Yeonnam is a Yeonnam-dong dessert café famous for sand cookies, located right on the Yeonnam-dong café street. Hours were 10am-9pm daily.

This is the exterior of Butter & Shelter Yeonnam — it had such a charming, exotic feel, like being in Europe.

There's a sign out front reading 'Butter & Shelter,' so it was easy to find.

Even before going in, the exotic exterior and interior design were so pretty.

Outside there were plenty of terrace seats, great for enjoying on a nice day.

Are pets allowed? Terrace seats only

For reference, Butter & Shelter Yeonnam is a pet-friendly café — but the sign noted that while pets are welcome on the terrace, eating inside the store with pets isn't allowed.

Inside Butter & Shelter Yeonnam: European-style interior and terrace

The interior felt cozy and warm, with wooden tables and seats that made it feel relaxed and unhurried. The overall mood was quiet and calm.

The decor evoked Europe, which made it great for photos too — such a cute, pretty interior.

They also provide Wi-Fi info you can use in the café, handy for borrowing for a bit.

Dessert and drink menu at Butter & Shelter Yeonnam

Butter & Shelter is known for its desserts — from butter tteok (rice cake) to original levain cookies, red velvet cream cheese cookies, choco s'mores cookies, hwangchi cheese cream cookies, Earl Grey lemon cookies, Matilda cake, and a variety of butter sands — everything looked delicious and pretty.

Next to the counter was a fridge case with even more desserts — sand cookies in raspberry cream cheese, glacé butter sand, crème brûlée butter sand, chocolate butter sand, and plain butter sand, plus Dubai chewy cookies, mango white cream cake, Victoria cake, chocolate chip butter cookies, and plain butter cookies.

For drinks there was a coffee menu of butter sepon, shelter sepon, espresso, crème brûlée espresso, americano, café latte, vanilla latte, and cappuccino; sweet non-coffee drinks like choco latte, matcha latte, royal milk tea, and strawberry latte; ades like lemon, grapefruit, and green grape; and a tea menu of honey lemon matcha, rooibos vanilla, peach oolong tea, royal chamomile, fruit dream, and genmaicha.

Three sand cookies compared: raspberry cream cheese, chocolate, crème brûlée

I ordered an iced americano along with three sand cookies.

I got the raspberry cream cheese, chocolate, and crème brûlée sand cookies. They were served cold, straight out of the fridge case — a cookie that's clearly meant to be eaten chilled.

Each sand cookie was packed full of cream between the cookie layers. The cookies themselves were rich and buttery, and with all that cream, they were really delicious. The raspberry cream cheese sand cookie had a great balance of tangy raspberry and cream cheese, while the crème brûlée sand cookie was loaded with vanilla cream and had a caramelized top like actual crème brûlée — sweet and delicious.

Lastly, the chocolate sand cookie had half of the cookie coated in chocolate, so you could taste chocolate in the cookie itself, plus the cream was chocolate cream too — sweet and delicious. Each type of sand cookie had its own charm, which made it so fun to taste them all — different creams, different cookies, different personalities.

Is Butter & Shelter Yeonnam worth a stop in Yeonnam-dong?

I had a sweet dessert time at this Yeonnam-dong café known for sand cookies, enjoying three sand cookies with an americano. The americano had a lovely nutty flavor, and each sand cookie had its own distinct charm — all delicious. If you're looking for a good Yeonnam-dong café or a Yeonnam sand cookie dessert spot, I'd recommend giving Butter & Shelter Yeonnam a visit!