“OUR BAKERY was named after Gordes, a small town located in southeastern France. On the walls of our café, we have written our motto: to become an honest bakery that provides freshly baked bread every day. With that in mind, we wanted to make sure our customers get a taste of our bread fresh out of the oven. Also, as you can see, our café’s interior design is inspired by the landscape and the bakeries of Gordes.”

   “There were several times when I thought cafes focused more on innovating drink menus without providing enough desserts to go with them. That was when I wanted to start a bakery café and introduce plenty of homemade desserts to future customers. The bakery started out in Myeong-dong but moved to Sinchon in 2014. Compared to other older cafes which have been around Sinchon for a long time, our café is relatively new. However, within the six years since we have settled here, we believe that we have earned some recognition and have become a well-known café.”

    “While our ang* butter macarons are the trademark dessert, another best seller is the mille-feuille cake. Since our bakery has a theme of a French bakery, a lot of our desserts are French. For example, we have what’s called an opera cake, which is a French cake delicately made with layers of espresso mousse. All of these desserts are made in the morning and we discard the leftovers at the end of the day so we never re-sell them. Since we focus more on baking various desserts, we tend to favor making drinks that don’t have a strong taste but those that complement our desserts. For example, we selectively choose coffee beans that add a mild and clean taste to our coffees which customers can easily enjoy with our rich flavored desserts.

    “We have a lot of loyal customers who have visited our bakery consistently throughout the years. Almost half of our customers are regulars; I remember one particular customer who would visit our bakery every day at 8:00 a.m., as soon as we opened. When we gave her a complimentary drink as an act of appreciation, she brought a friend with her the next day and then brought more people to our bakery the day after that. From then, she started coming twice a day. When we asked why she liked our café so much, she said, ‘I have been to many bakeries but this place has always been friendly and provided me with such kind service. I was grateful for being remembered and welcomed every time, which is why I keep coming back here.’ I can never forget that response, and that motivates me to work harder every day. Words can’t express how proud I feel whenever I see our customers having a good time at Gordes.”

 

*Ang: stands for ang-geum, which is a sweet red bean paste used as fillings in desserts