Gangnam café for yellow cheese financier upstairs: Upper and Under

I'm Ddu, a self-proclaimed café lover. My friend and I were looking for a nice-vibe café in Gangnam to catch up after a while, and Upper and Under caught our eye — it seemed good for chatting and had a wide variety of desserts, so in we went!!

There are so many cafés around Gangnam that it's hard to find one with genuinely good vibes, but the desserts here were both pretty and delicious, so I left satisfied haha. It's also conveniently located between Sinnonhyeon Station and Gangnam Station, and it seemed to be one of the more popular large cafés in the area~

Where is Upper and Under, and what are the hours and parking?

• Address: 28 Gangnam-daero 102-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, South Korea
• Hours: Daily 11:00–22:00
• Parking: Not available

Inside Upper and Under: floors and menu board

The interior of Upper and Under was clean and bright overall. The basement level could be reached from outside, and it had a quiet, calm atmosphere that I really liked!

It felt like a comfortable spot for chatting over coffee, good for a date or meeting up with friends. On a nice-weather day, sitting on the outdoor terrace looking at the green trees with a cup of coffee would be lovely. It's still too hot for that though — pass for now~!

What we ordered at Upper and Under

We ordered an iced americano and an iced pistachio cream latte, plus a hwangchiju (yellow cheese) financier and a raspberry cake slice for dessert.

There were plenty of good-looking cake slices, and since it's fig season, desserts piled high with figs stood out too haha.

There were also tons of financiers and tarts, each one pretty enough to be great for photos! With so many appealing desserts, I honestly wanted to eat them all ㅜㅜ

The 2nd-floor seats at dessert café Upper and Under

We grabbed a nice-looking spot on the 2nd floor haha. There's a restroom reserved just for café customers, which was convenient. Upper and Under runs from the basement through the 1st and 2nd floors, so the scale of the place is quite large~!

How does the pistachio cream latte taste?

First, the iced americano was clean and easy to drink, pairing well with dessert. As for the pistachio cream latte — I love pistachio in general — it had generous cream on top plus actual bits of pistachio to bite into, making it much richer than a regular café latte, and it was sweet and nutty in a good way.

The subtle nutty pistachio flavor lingered, and I thought it would pair especially well with fruity, fragrant desserts! They give you a wooden spoon so you can eat the cream separately, but I personally prefer mixing it all together for a thick, creamy drink — feel free to go with whatever suits your taste.

Yellow cheese financier and raspberry cake slice

Both desserts were satisfying, but since I've been really into hwangchiju (yellow cheese) desserts lately, the salty, savory flavor of Upper and Under's hwangchiju financier is what stuck with me most haha.

The hwangchiju flavor wasn't overpowering — just the right amount of saltiness with that distinctive hwangchiju aroma coming through. Even the cookie crumbs on top tasted exactly like Ppoppo Cheese Ball crackers! They also have a hwangchiju Basque cheesecake, and since Upper and Under seems to nail the hwangchiju flavor, I'd love to try that one next time.

The raspberry cake slice was lovely — tart and sweet. The cream was soft, and the raspberry seeds popped for a refreshing texture that kept me scooping up more and more!

Who will like Upper and Under?

If you're like me and can never just order a single drink at a café without dessert on the side, this place should hit the spot~ If you're looking for a good-vibe café in Gangnam where you can enjoy coffee and dessert together, it's worth a visit. Next time I go, I want to try even more of the dessert menu!