Mangnidan-gil bakery solo pick of 4 breads: Boulangerie Copain

When a bread lover goes to Mangwon-dong, it's overwhelming haha. There are so many delicious, famous bakeries that it practically demands a bread pilgrimage. Walking from Mangwon Market toward Mangridan-gil, there are tons of small bakeries — today I visited Boulangerie Copain, a place worth stopping by if you love bread.

Where is Boulangerie Copain and what are its hours?

Boulangerie Copain is a Mangwon-dong bread pilgrimage spot located at 115 Huiujeong-ro, 1F, Mapo-gu, Seoul. It's open 10:00–22:00, closed during the Chuseok holiday.

Boulangerie Copain was featured on Life's Masters as a baguette and croissant master shop. It's a European-style bakery built on hotel-trained baking skills ^_^

I love bread too, so whenever I visit a new neighborhood I save bakeries on my map first. This day I properly picked out a basil sandwich, choco baguette, angbutter baguette, and palmier. My resolution to buy just one thing was already over the moment I opened the bakery door ^_^ Trying them all, each menu item had a different style, which made it a fun Mangwon-dong bakery to pick and choose from.

What breads does Boulangerie Copain in Mangwon-dong sell?

Walking into Boulangerie Copain, there was a variety of freshly baked bread. I personally like sweet cream-filled bread too, but I lean more toward breads like baguettes that get nuttier the more you chew — and this place happens to be great at baguettes, campagne, and brioche loaf.

From sweet desserts to sandwiches you can eat instead of a meal, the variety made it easy to choose according to taste. If you're looking for a Mangridan-gil bakery and want to browse a range of breads rather than just one kind, this is a fun place to look around.

The signature menu items are croissant, baguette, choco baguette, basil crunch, and ham cheese baguette. The trendy choco baguette these days is insane — dripping with chocolate, loaded with Valrhona chocolate.

The sandwiches looked appetizing and were affordably priced too, which is great. They'd be plenty for brunch or a simple meal.

Valrhona choco baguette, ₩7,000. Aiming to be a European-style bakery anyone can enjoy comfortably, they have a wide range of meal breads too, and as a baguette specialist shop, the baguettes are just as good as you'd expect!

They're also great at pastries — pain au chocolat, pain suisse, tomato olive Danish, and more — so there was a really wide variety.

But I really want you to try the meal breads. They're genuinely excellent here. I'd recommend the campagne, baguette, ciabatta, and brioche.

The basil sandwich: fragrant and full of herbs

The basil sandwich is great for a light bite after a workout. You know how sometimes you don't want a heavy meal, but a single piece of bread alone isn't quite enough? This is exactly the menu item you'd think of in that moment. On the first bite, the distinct fragrant flavor of basil came through first, and as the bread and filling were chewed together, the flavors blended naturally. The basil aroma wasn't overpowering, so it never felt like too much.

With sandwiches especially, if the bread is too chewy it can get tiring partway through, but the overall texture balance here was good, so I enjoyed it all the way to the end. Paired with a coffee, it'd make a nice simple brunch.

Valrhona choco baguette, 7,000 won and impossible to skip

Whenever I go to a bakery, the choco baguette is something I always buy. Adding chocolate to the plain, nutty flavor of a baguette is a combo that's hard to mess up. Boulangerie Copain's choco baguette really delivers on crisp-outside-chewy-inside chocolate flavor! The more you chew, the more the sweetness of the chocolate comes through. It's not just sweetness blasting from start to finish — the chocolate comes in between the nutty baguette flavor, which was exactly my taste.

If you like sweet bread but get tired of overly sweet desserts quickly, this might work well for you. Personally, out of everything I tried this time, this is the menu item I'd reach for again on a return visit. If you like this style of baguette, it's worth saving as a Mangwon-dong bakery to remember. It's also close to Mangwon Hangang Park, so it's a perfect stop before a picnic. But I came alone this time, so I just quietly bought my bread and left haha.

Boulangerie Copain's time sale after 7pm

Mangwon-dong bakery favorite Boulangerie Copain also runs a time sale after 19:00. Bread prices are so high these days that just a few items can easily run ₩20,000–30,000, so how could you pass up 20% or 30% off...