The Seongsu Edition

On Seoul, shopping, and currency strength.

Matt Rodbard is the editor-in-chief of TASTE, and co-host of the podcast This Is TASTE with Aliza Abarbanel. His new cookbook, Koreaworld, is out in April.

Matt here. I visited Seoul last month to report a story for Food & Wine about modern restaurants in Seoul, and how they inspire American restaurants, Korean and otherwise. (The piece is timed with the April release of a book I wrote with Deuki Hong, Koreaworld, which also taps into the modern food scene in Korea and around America.) But I'm not here to talk about food. I'm here to talk about Seongsu-dong, a neighborhood of Seoul that seems to reboot every time I visit (three times in the past three years).

Why is this interesting?

I've been traveling to Korea regularly for the past decade-plus, and during those earlier visits, the younger scene felt more underground and hard to tap in with as a non-Korean speaker and outsider like me. Today, a 12000₩ ($9) taxi ride to Seongsu-dong is all you need to jump right in, as I did this past Saturday afternoon. 

Some quick observations: Concept stores have taken over—the Pan Am store is wild and a certified Korean lifestyle brand, all bucket hats, totes, and $90 crews in the brand's iconic blue and white. American IP was rebirthed in the coolest way. Umbro was celebrating 100 years with a two-week pop-up in an old dry cleaner, dubbed Mr. Um's Cleaners, where shoppers could secure their own 1998 Beckham fit. The store had a tight selection of zip-ups, jerseys, and performance gear, too. (I personally haven't thought about wearing Umbro since jumping into a pool in those white Umbros every Midwestern boy had in the early '90s. Instant see-through.) 

During my last visit to Seongsu, I waited in line to enter the Ader Error store/lunar installation called Ader Space. The wait was over an hour this time, so I skipped a second walk-through but did check out the Korean fashion brand's upstairs cafe, Tongue Planet. All Memphis furniture, twisted emoji cakes, and black pepper viennoiserie. Plus, great coffee. There is great coffee everywhere today in Seoul, which is striking compared to the Nescafe reliance during my visits in the early 2010s. I wrote about the booming coffee scene in Seoul for WITI after my last trip; Seoul coffee is lapppppping Tokyo. IYKYK. Coffee Nap and Mesh are two current favs.

There’s another big reason that this is the time to visit Seoul, and other places in Korea like Busan, Jeju, and Gangwon-do (this is not paid for, I promise). The $ to ₩ is STRONG, and getting around has never been easier.  Once you bite the bullet for the flight (check for deals on non-Korean Air carriers), general travel expenses can be controlled: Good hotels are under $200/night, and the restaurant scene is both out of control good right now, and affordable (especially compared with my last meal at Union Square Cafe -- yikes). And with the strength of the dollar, beauty tourism is booming too. That story is for another day, another writer, but I was walking around Apgujeong and it was clear that foreigners were flowing in. Yes, you still need a bit of a plan when visiting Korea, and like in Tokyo, Google Maps can break down at inopportune times. But that’s just a great reason to familiarize yourself with Kakao, a Korean navigation app with delightful stickers. FWIW, summer can be brutally hot/humid. The best time is Fall, Winter, or Spring. The coffee comes cold or hot. (MR)

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Thanks for reading,

Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Matt (MR)

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