Aqua Garden Café (Photo by Denisse Rauda)
In Seoul’s Jamsil District, you’ll never be out of options for shopping, dining and entertainment. There are so many options, in fact, that it’s very easy to be overwhelmed. Take a break and unwind while watching some of the ocean’s peaceful creatures at Lotte World Mall.
Aqua Garden Café on the B1 floor of the mall offers coffee, desserts paired with modern furniture, ambient lighting and large tanks featuring beautiful fish, turtles and other sea dwellers.
There are no bad seats in the café as each face at least one large tank or one of the many small tanks. During my visit, we sat inside the atrium room at the center of the café, which had a wide tank with a variety of fish, including small goldfish and Peruvian Angelfish. Behind us, smaller tanks had dozens of sparkling goldfish. At the entrance, large tanks were home to small manta rays and large fish.
The interior of the café also had trees and foliage spreading across the walls and up to the ceiling, giving it a Rainforest Café feel.
(Photo by Denisse Rauda)
(Photo by Denisse Rauda)
The menu prices were a little on the expensive side, so don’t expect to drink like a fish for cheap here! We ordered a chocolate Roche cake slice (10,000 won or about $7), a subtly sweet and not-too-chocolatey take on the delightful gold-wrapped Ferrero Roche hazelnut truffles. For drinks, we opted for an Iced Americano (9,500 won), which was standard, nothing special and a Vanilla Bean Latte (10,000 won). The latte was a little on the sweet side and had the tell-tale black specks signaling that at least there was some real vanilla bean in there.
Midway through our coffee and cake, we took a break and walked around the café to see the other residents. The turtle tank was impressive, and they were very receptive to human visitors. Unfortunately, they might have been expecting us to feed them, but there is no feed for sale, and you should absolutely not share your dessert with a turtle or fish, no matter how hungry they might look.
All in all, I counted about 20 tanks with many different fish, shellfish and turtles. In the back corner, a showroom sells tanks, greenery, fish and turtles to recreate a sea life oasis at home. There were baby turtles for sale that I was pained to not be able to buy since I don’t live in Korea.
Though the experience was not the cheapest, the entertainment made up the difference. It was a nice escape from the busy shopping area and it helped that the other patrons were also there to relax.
Check out Aqua Garden Café on a weekday if you don’t want to wait or deal with crowds.
Address: 29, Sincheon-dong, Songpa-gu, Seoul; B1 Lotte World Mall (서울특별시 송파구 올림픽로 300 B1)
Hours: 10:30 a.m.- 10 p.m. daily
