I heard a rumour that the Dior café in Cheongdam-dong was the first place in the world to sell Pierre Hermé cakes made live on site, so there was no way I could skip it.

Ispahan cocktail

The taste is top-notch, but so is the price: roughly double what a place already considered expensive would charge, so be warned. Well… but when a space this gorgeous and food this beautiful exist here in Korea, what does value for money even mean? We should just be grateful it exists at all.

Probably a Vienna coffee

Ispahan mille-feuille

Well… it was art. The taste, the design, all of it. I’m really glad I came to eat here. Every now and then I want to spend an elegant afternoon in a space like this, but Korea doesn’t offer many options. At least the Four Seasons has opened now, which is something.

Staircase

I didn’t get to see the photo that’s been causing a stir lately, but I did visit the exhibition room and it was wonderful. Do go if you get the chance… As for the woman holding a luxury bag in a shabby alley, I took it to mean that even when reality is dirty and squalid, you should live proudly and gracefully. So I was surprised at how many people let their imagination run straight to room salons (hostess bars), and surprised again at how crudely people attacked anyone who saw it differently. I suppose it just shows how everyday the room-salon culture is in Korea, and the artist was simply too innocent to know.

한국어로 읽기日本語で読む