"At first it was a bit of a shock, and for a few days I was even scared. I kept thinking, 'Can I really satisfy all these people?' I was in a state of confusion for about two to four weeks."
Last March, long lines snaked down a quiet alley in Cheonho-dong, Gangdong-gu, Seoul, in front of Otre Bakery, then entering its fifth year of operation. The sudden surge of visitors left local residents bewildered enough to file complaints, and police were called in to manage the crowd. The people had gathered to buy the "choco-bumbuk baguette," a product available for just one month. Park Jeong-won, 33, the founder of Otre Bakery, recalled the scene during an interview at the Cheonho-dong flagship on Wednesday. "I still can't forget it," he said.
Otre Bakery opened its second location in June at Shinsegae's Gangnam department store, joining Sweet Park — widely regarded as the premier destination for top dessert brands in the country. Even the pop-up that preceded the official opening drew open-run crowds every day. "Every time the business grows, I feel a rush of joy thinking that our team's hard work has finally paid off," Park said.
Baking was not always Park's ambition. After majoring in culinary arts in college, he went straight into fine dining after completing his military service — but the reality did not match his expectations. While weighing his options, he landed a job at a specialty bakery in Namcheon-dong, Busan, run by a French chef, and the experience changed everything.
"Working there, I thought, 'This is genuinely fun — I could do this for the rest of my life,'" Park said. "I also wanted to try working in France." That experience led him to pursue a working holiday in France, and in 2017 he set off in earnest. "From the day after I arrived in France, I started handing out resumes I had prepared in advance," he said. "I would visit 13 or 14 bakeries a day, taste their bread, and only apply to the ones I liked."
The shop where Park worked was La Goutte D'or, a Parisian dessert boutique well known among Korean tourists. It was there that he set his sights on another challenge: enrolling at Ferrandi, one of France's most prestigious culinary schools. "Compared to the United States or Japan, tuition in France is not that expensive, so I thought I could save up while working," he said.
The COVID-19 pandemic, however, changed his plans. Returning to Korea, Park decided to start his own business, and in 2022 Otre Bakery opened in Cheonho-dong. "'Autour' means 'nearby' in French," Park explained. "When I was in France, I visited two bakeries and dessert shops a week like homework, but the ones I loved most were the good bakeries near where I lived."
Otre Bakery's signature item is the choco-bumbuk baguette. It debuted last March through "Monthly Otre" — a program that introduces a new product available for just one month — but relentless open-run demand earned it a permanent spot on the menu. The "raspberry-bumbuk baguette," the May offering, has also become a permanent item. "When a customer eats the bread, I want it to taste exactly the way they hoped it would," Park said. "I focus on making the flavor balance I have in mind come through intuitively." He also runs a YouTube channel with 130,000 subscribers, where he shares the process of developing new products.
Competitive pricing is another draw. Most products, including the Monthly Otre items, are priced between 2,000 and 6,000 won. "Rather than focusing on the cost ratio, we discuss pricing as a team based on whether the price feels worth paying," Park said.
The two locations now serve 500 to 700 groups of customers a day combined, and the staff has grown to around 20. "I want to open pop-up stores in other areas so that subscribers can visit more often," Park said. "My goal is to open a third permanent location in a central, accessible area — somewhere like Mapo-gu in Seoul."
soho0902@heraldcorp.com
