Anseong bakery café for squid ink cream cheese bread: Chat Baker

Since we had Jjang-i, our standards for picking a café have changed a lot. Before, I only cared about the coffee or the vibe, but now that I'm out and about with Jjang-i, I naturally check first whether a place is spacious and comfortable to hang out in with a baby. Haha.

This time we went with Jjang-i to Chat Baker in Gongdo, Anseong. We got to enjoy a wide variety of bakery items and coffee in a spacious setting. As a dad who went in person, let me walk you through everything from the vibe of the place to the bread we tried.

Chat Baker: a 500-pyeong bakery café in Gongdo, Anseong

Chat Baker is said to be a large bakery café spanning about 500 pyeong in Gongdo, Anseong. Walking in, the space was indeed spacious, and the seats were arranged with a fair amount of room between them.

Soft music played through the store, which made it pleasant to spend time eating bread and drinking coffee. It would be a nice spot for a solo coffee run, but for a family moving around with a baby like us, the sheer amount of space felt like a real advantage. The parking lot was roomy too, which was a plus.

Visiting Chat Baker with a 4-month-old: floor seats and group tables upstairs

This visit included our 4-month-old baby, Jjang-i. Haha. Going out with a baby means lots of gear and lots to keep track of, so the space itself becomes the first thing we look at in a café.

Chat Baker, being one of the large Pyeongtaek-Anseong cafés, had plenty of breathing room, which I appreciated. It's something I never used to think about, but since having a baby, it turns out to matter quite a bit when choosing a café. Go up the stairs and there's a wide second-floor space. It's a very comfortable, spacious layout with everything from 4-person tables to group seating to floor tables.

Since the café leans into a music concept, there's LP record-shaped interior decor and various actual LPs on display, which gave the space a modern yet relaxed feel.

Over 80 kinds of bread and automatic doors on the display cases

And you can't talk about Chat Baker without talking about the bread! They say they offer over 80 kinds of handmade bakery items, hand-kneaded and baked fresh every dawn, and once we got there, the variety really was so wide it was hard to decide what to try. They also make their own cream and raw chocolate in-house.

While browsing the display case to choose our bread, I noticed it had an automatic door. It seemed better hygienically, and it looked like it would keep the bread inside fresher too.

They sell brunch here too, it turns out. We'd already eaten a meal before coming, so we just ordered bread.

The breads we tried at Chat Baker, one by one

Squid ink cream cheese chewy bread

First up, the ink cream cheese chewy bread. It's a chewy bread packed with cream cheese inside. The chewy texture and soft cream cheese work well together, and though it could easily turn heavy, the squid-ink dough seems to keep the flavor clean.

Raspberry cream choco baguette

The raspberry cream choco baguette was, to me, pretty impressive. The chocolate flavor is strong, but the raspberry cream is bright and fresh, so the combination worked better than I expected.

Hot chili sausage bread

The hot chili sausage bread had a great pop of texture when biting into the sausage. It was a satisfying, filling option for when bread alone isn't quite enough.

Tomato basil cheese hotteok (griddled stuffed pancake)

The tomato basil cheese hotteok (stuffed pancake) caught my curiosity just from the name, so I picked it. Inside were tomato basil sauce, ham and other ingredients, which gave it almost a pizza-like feel. Personally, I really enjoyed this one!

Ham cheese corn toast

The ham cheese corn toast really didn't need a long explanation. Textbook sweet-and-salty. Haha.

The combination of ham, cheese and corn made it easy to keep reaching for.

Choux cream bread

Last up, choux cream bread.

This one really proved the saying that a familiar flavor is a dangerous one. It's the choux cream bread you already know, and that's exactly why you can't stop reaching for it.

What are the coffee and drinks like at Chat Baker?

With so many kinds of bakery items, ordering coffee felt like the natural move.

Chat Baker offers drip coffee made by a professional barista, along with a variety of drinks like brown sugar latte, house vanilla bean latte, raw chocolate latte and lemonade. They say even the bases used in the drinks are made in-house. If you're picking several breads like we did, pairing them with a cup of coffee and taking your time is a good way to go.

Is Chat Baker worth a visit with a baby?

Having visited in person, what stuck with me most about Chat Baker was being able to enjoy spacious seating, a wide bakery selection, and coffee all in one place. This time, with Jjang-i along for the trip, I found myself looking at the café from a slightly different angle than before.

With so many kinds of bread, there was fun in picking and choosing, and since each item we tried had its own character, it was a good spot to visit with a group and share a bit of everything. The interior was clearly given a lot of thought too — along one glass wall, water was being sprayed across the window, both to cool the heat and please the eye, and it gave a nice refreshing feeling on a hot day.

If you're looking for an Anseong Gongdo bakery café to visit with family, or a large café with a wide bread selection, Chat Baker is worth checking out.