Rainy-day window seat and 4 pastries in Jayang-dong: Stack Bakery

Stack Bakery: pastries and coffee between Jayang-dong and Konkuk University Station

When I'm hanging around Jayang-dong or Konkuk University Station and want good bread and coffee, this is the spot to stop by! It's Stack Bakery, a Konkuk-area café-bakery~ The Konkuk area has so many good restaurants and cafés that it's hard to decide where to go, but this time I wanted something lighter than a full meal — just bread and coffee. I especially liked that it's a bakery café where you can enjoy freshly baked pastries alongside coffee!

Stack Bakery is at 5 Ttukseom-ro 31-gil, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, South Korea (1st & 2nd floor), open Thu–Tue 08:00–21:00, closed Wednesdays.

Stack Bakery sells a variety of breads centered on croissants and French-style pastries made in-house.

They say they do everything from mixing dough to baking every single day, and the moment I walked in the nutty smell of bread hit me, so naturally I ended up browsing the whole display~

What's in Stack Bakery's pastry showcase

The pastries on display were pretty varied too. From croissants to kouign-amann to pain au chocolat, there was a good lineup of buttery menu items, so it was fun picking one to try.

With so many bread varieties it's fun just to look around. Everything looked delicious and I wanted to buy it all, but... gotta hold back and only eat as much as I can actually finish!

The four pastries I ordered on my own

There's also a good range of drinks to pair with the bread. I ordered:

• Iced vanilla latte
• Whole grilled sausage pastry
• Crookie
• Pain au jambon fromage
• Hazelnut kouign-amann

That's what I went with!

Apparently Super Junior did their 19th anniversary live broadcast at Stack Bakery~ Definitely confirms it's a Konkuk hotspot!

The second-floor window seat on a rainy day

I settled into a seat on the 2nd floor, which has a full glass window looking outside, and since it happened to be raining that day, the atmosphere was really nice.

Listening to the rain outside the window with warm bread and coffee in front of me felt so much more relaxed and romantic than usual~ If you're the type who loves that particular feeling of sitting in a café on a rainy day, I think you'd love this even more.

Iced vanilla latte

The iced vanilla latte was delicious — soft milk with the coffee's nutty, slightly bitter flavor, plus a gentle sweetness from the vanilla. It's not an overpowering sweetness, so it paired well with the bread, good for sipping alongside each pastry~

You can eat 4 pastries by yourself, right...?

Crookie

The crookie — you can't skip it at a pastry café these days. The flaky, layered texture of the croissant combined with the sweet, nutty flavor of cookie gave it a charm different from a regular croissant! If you like sweet desserts, this was a great pairing with coffee~

Whole grilled sausage pastry

The whole grilled sausage pastry. A whole grilled sausage tucked inside a crisply baked pastry, so with one bite you get both the crunchy bread and the plump, springy sausage at once! The savory, juicy flavor of the sausage matched well with the buttery pastry, making it feel more like a solid snack than a light one.

Pain au jambon fromage (ham and cheese pastry)

I've had pain au chocolat before, but this was my first time with pain au jambon fromage! The pastry has clear, layered flaky texture, and with ham and cheese added it had a savory, salty flavor. The buttery flavor of the bread itself came together with the umami of the ham and cheese, and it worked really well with coffee.

Hazelnut kouign-amann

I also tried the hazelnut kouign-amann. Kouign-amann is one of my favorite breads. The outside is baked crisp while the inside keeps its layered texture, so it has a great mouthfeel. Add the distinctly nutty, rich flavor of hazelnut, and it goes really well with the buttery pastry! Sweet yet nutty, it paired nicely with the iced vanilla latte.

Is Stack Bakery worth a solo visit?

Stack Bakery says it uses beans blended by a roaster with 15 years of experience, and after trying it myself, I felt it's a great place to enjoy pastries and coffee together. If you're looking for a good bakery or bakery café in Jayang-dong, or trying to figure out where to go for a date or meetup near Konkuk University Station, I think Stack Bakery is worth a visit for freshly baked pastries with your coffee!