Marque, a Bakery Cafe in Nonhyeon Station’s Yeongdong Market

Along Line 7, Nonhyeon Station was already a convenient area, and it became even hotter once the Shinbundang Line opened. Because of that, it seemed better to meet at Nonhyeon Station rather than the busy Gangnam area, so while looking for a bakery cafe near Nonhyeon Station, I found a place near the entrance to Yeongdong Market that had been featured on TV many times for its delicious desserts.

It’s a bakery called Marque.

Marque became even more popular through tvN’s Amazing Saturday and KBS’s Fun-Staurant, as well as by being introduced by Lee Young-ja.

Even if a place appears on TV many times, there are often cases where you end up feeling disappointed when you actually go and try it. Still, since it was a cafe, I thought there wouldn’t be a big problem even if the food wasn’t great, so I decided to make it our meeting place.

Since it’s a bakery cafe, there were really so many different kinds of baked goods.

There were so many options that it was actually hard to choose what to get. If I had visited a few times, I would have picked the most delicious baked goods and something new to try, but since it was my first visit, it was even harder. I think the reason it felt difficult was probably because I wanted to try everything.

After choosing dessert at Marque, the Yeongdong Market dessert spot near Nonhyeon Station, I also picked a drink.

For the coffee, they said they use beans that ranked first in roasting that year so it would pair well with dessert.

That made me curious about the coffee, so I chose one coffee drink. And since I was also curious about a non-coffee drink, I went with a refreshing ade.

Since it’s a bakery cafe, the ingredients’ origins matter.

As shown on the board listing the origins of the main ingredients, Marque, the Yeongdong Market dessert spot near Nonhyeon Station, uses organic ingredients. That may be another reason it’s so popular.

Marque Bakery Cafe is run by a chef from Nakamura, and it doesn’t use preservatives or additives, so it’s a place where you can enjoy bread that is both healthy and delicious.

The dessert choices were hard to make!!

Actually, because the desserts were small, I think I could have eaten four or more.

The coffee had a nutty, smooth taste. And the lemon lime ade, which let me really feel the refreshing flavor, had strong carbonation. If you don’t like strong carbonation, I’d recommend ordering tea instead.

It also seems like it would be nice to have it warm in winter.

I’ll introduce the Marque desserts in clockwise order, starting with the scone.

First, there were many kinds of scones. They said the most popular one is naturally the basic scone, the French butter scone. But I chose the fig scone.

The fig scone was soft, with the rich buttery, nutty aroma typical of a scone and the savory saltiness of butter blending well together. I thought the fig would have a strong sweetness, but it wasn’t that sweet, and the fig seemed to play more of a textural role than a flavor one.

I chose the sesame mochi bread for the first time in a really long while. An employee said it was delicious because it was packed with glutinous rice, so I chose it—and it really was chewy and full of glutinous rice. Also, if sesame mochi bread is made poorly, it can end up with a tough texture instead of a chewy one, but Marque’s sesame mochi bread was served slightly warmed, and when it was warm I could think, well, anything tastes good when it’s warm. Even after it cooled down, I could still feel the same chewy yet soft texture.

I think there were about five kinds of financiers.

I chose the salted caramel financier. Financiers have a sticky texture with a strong sweetness, so they can definitely be hit or miss. But Marque Bakery Cafe seems to have adapted them to suit Korean tastes. They were extremely soft and moist.

On top of that, because salt was sprinkled on them, the moment they touched my mouth they had a savory note, and the way they melted softly in my mouth was the best.

I ended up falling in love with the financiers at Marque.

This is the fresh lemon cake. This dessert is said to be the signature menu item at Marque Bakery Cafe, the Yeongdong Market dessert spot near Nonhyeon Station.

I could tell why the moment I tried it. The fresh lemon cake gave off a feeling somewhere between a madeleine and a castella sponge cake, and it had the driest texture among the desserts. But when eating it in the mouth, that dryness wasn’t very noticeable. And if the fresh lemon flavor had been too strong, it would have been hard to eat, but that wasn’t the case, and the sugar coating wasn’t excessive either, so it was a dessert that wasn’t overly sweet.