Aussie Hill: Hangangjin

After not being able to visit my home country for more than two years (thanks 'rona), I was craving a little taste Australia. So I took my friend to the closest thing Seoul has to offer, Aussie Hill.

We headed to the affluent neighbourhood of Hangangjin, and wandered down behind the main café area to an area that was a mix of residential and foreign embassies.

Contrasting with the muted colour palette of it’s surrounds, the first thing you’re greeted with are terracotta brick stairs, reminiscent of Australia’s iconic red centre. This is the original location of the cafe and bakery, however they have also opened a branch on Jeju Island.

At the top of the stairs there is a little patio area with seating. Since it was winter, it looked a little rough, with most of it’s plants dead, however in summer time it would be lovely to sit and enjoy the weather.

Entering into the Australian style café and bakery, you’re greeted with the large selection of cakes and baked goods. There was an array of nice-looking cakes on offer, and while they do offer some quintessential Australian baked goods, that day there weren’t any.

To the right of this was the ordering area and small ‘kitchen’ behind. The whole area, including the cake display did a great job capturing a typical old style Australian home; green cabinetry, old books used as stands and jars and tins of typical Australian pantry items like Woolies flour, Leggo’s tinned tomatoes and the iconic Vegemite. There was also a selection of tea from T2 the Australian tea company.

There were two indoor seating areas. Upstairs and the basement level. Social distancing had been recently relaxed on cafes, so since there were not many people, we decided sit in the basement.

The basement area was divided into little sections that gave a nice intimacy to each seating area. The seats were dark wooden cubes with metal boxes. They were quite low and meant that the space was better suited to socializing.

The floor was covered a dark chocolate carpet, and the walls were slightly off white. While it was nicely decorated, the downstairs lighting made it hard to take pictures.

The decoration of the place was relatively simple, in that it was reminiscent of an Australian suburban home. In the area that my friend and I sat was a large vintage speaker set up. There were cabinets and small book shelves throughout the space.

There were also some nice posters with Australian icons or themes, and though falling down, there were in a strange way reminiscent of my own teenage bedroom.

Old books were a key decorative item with a large stack of used books under the stairs and books in the shelves. Interestingly, these books weren’t high quality classics, but rather trashy romance novels, typical of an op-shop (thrift store) back home. Though somewhat strange, they were a lovely touch and added a real sense of authenticity to the café.

For the drinks, I ordered a milk tea and my friend got an americano. My milk tea was tasty with a rounded tea flavour. It also came in a vintage style tea cup and saucer. As for the ammericano, my friend said the coffee was unoffensive and nice flavour for all palettes.

But now to what we came here for. Unfortunately, since there were no 100% authentic Australian sweets on offer that day, we settled for a little fusion. We got a lamington brownie and a meat pie. Admittedly I didn’t even realise that the meat pie was a meat pie, till my friend pointed out the label. This is because it looked more like a fruit pie pastry. As for the taste, the filing had a nice texture and used a lot of spices, however it tasted more sweet than savory, which was strange so it didn’t hit the mark as an Aussie pie.

The lamington brownie was tasty and a nice combination between the two desserts. It had the dense chocolate body of the brownie, and the coconut and strawberry of a lamington (an Australian sponge cake with a jam layer that is coated in chocolate and shredded coconut).

Overall, this is a great spot to visit if you want a little slice of Australia in Seoul. In dead beat terms, this café and bakery has done a great job paying homage to the essence of home style Australiana. While the dishes didn’t quite hit the spot, the effort and essence was there, so for me Aussie Hill gets a tick of approval.

Aussie Hill Instagram