Mortadella pasta and Stella lager in Yeonnam-dong: Hôtel de Couture

Had such a good time with an old friend last weekend~! She came all the way up from Cheongju, so I really wanted to treat her (?) to something good! After an escape room in Hongdae, we went for dinner at a Western restaurant in Yeonnam-dong with great atmosphere and great food.

What Hôtel de Couture looks like inside and out

Hôtel de Couture is a Western restaurant on Donggyo-ro 46-gil in Yeonnam-dong, located on the 2nd floor of the building. We walked over after doing an escape room near Hongik University Station and stopped in for dinner.

Here's the outside! It's got that European vibe radiating even from the street~! The restaurant is on the 2nd floor. Actually, thinking about it now, this would be a great spot to visit at Christmas!! Don't the exterior decorations already feel a bit Christmassy? haha

Couldn't get a proper shot of the inside because it was so busy 😂 The interior had great atmosphere too, and it looked like a popular spot for women's meetups and dates~!

You can also see into the open kitchen, and it looked clean and tidy, which made the food even more promising 🤍

Hôtel de Couture's menu and QR code ordering

At Hôtel de Couture, you order by scanning the QR code on the table! The menu had pasta, risotto, steak, salad, and French toast.

I like that QR ordering, which you see a lot these days, doesn't take up much table space haha

The menu had pasta, risotto, steak, salad, and French toast~! Not a huge selection, but everything looked delicious so it was hard to decide~! And of course, there was wine that seemed like it would pair well with the food! They sell it by the glass as well as the bottle, so it's great to pair with Western food! Imagine coming here with a date and sharing a glass of wine 🤍

What we ordered at Hôtel de Couture: mortadella lemon butter pasta, jambon truffle cream risotto, Stella lager

We ordered the mortadella lemon butter pasta (₩17,000), jambon truffle cream risotto (₩17,000), and a Stella lager beer (₩7,000)!

Mortadella lemon butter pasta, 17,000 won

This was my first time trying lemon butter pasta, and before eating it I was thinking... lemon pasta...? would that even work? But it was so good! It's tangy but also rich from the butter, and somehow the combination just works haha. I wondered what 'mortadella' even meant, and after looking it up, turns out it's the ham topping on top! Looks pretty salty but it's less salty than you'd think! It worked really well as an accent while eating the pasta.

Jambon truffle cream risotto, 17,000 won

This jambon truffle cream risotto — my friend and I both genuinely loved it!!! It was so good we scraped the bowl clean together haha. I'm not usually a fan of jambon (ham), but with the cream risotto it was so good I finished the whole thing 🩷

Break the yolk and mix it all together 👍 The rice here has this barley-and-oat feel, and the texture was seriously great haha. That little pop with every bite was amazing!! It was also just the right level of rich, so as someone who loves cream risotto, this was such a satisfying dish haha.

The visuals are pretty too, right?? Probably why it seemed so popular for women's meetups and dates! I'd definitely recommend it as a date course among Yeonnam-dong restaurants haha. The prices are reasonable too, with pasta and risotto both in the ten-thousand-won range 👍👍 but the visuals and taste feel like twenty-thousand-won territory!! haha

Look at that lemon butter pasta visual~~ Loaded with garlic too haha. As expected, we're a garlic nation 😆😆

Since I'm off alcohol these days, I got a zero-sugar cola while my friend ordered the Stella lager beer! When you order Stella lager, they even give you this cute dedicated Stella beer glass. She said it tasted even better with the cold beer 😆 Next time I want to try it with wine instead!haha

Is Hôtel de Couture a good Hongdae group dinner or Yeonnam-dong date spot?

If you're looking for a Western food or pasta restaurant in Yeonnam-dong, or a date or meetup spot near Hongdae, I'd recommend Hôtel de Couture.