Oase Brunch Commune, Oksu: brunch on a hill above the river
Finding a brunch table on a weekend morning with a friend you have not seen in a while is harder than it should be. The well-known places have an hour’s wait, the quiet ones are not worth eating at, and the neighborhood cafes do not do brunch. In residential districts like Oksu and Geumho, where people who work in the city live, a calm Saturday brunch is oddly hard to come by.
Part of the reason is that the good brunch is one bridge or one hill away. Cross the river and you are in Apgujeong; over the hill are Bogwang-dong and Hannam; a little further is Geumnam market. People leave. But I like finding the places that stay hidden, and I wanted one that was pretty, had room, and cooked well.
Oase is all three, and it has three faces: brunch from morning to lunch, a daytime cafe in the afternoon, and a place for a glass of wine on Friday and Saturday nights. I came for Saturday brunch with an old friend, and sitting there it was obvious the room works for a date or a family just as well. It was all there: a couple, a married pair chatting, a family, and a few people alone with their heads down.
Before you go
| Item | Notes |
|---|---|
| Timing | We arrived around 10:30 and had space. By 11:30 the ground floor was filling. Weekend brunch is easiest between 10 and 11 |
| Ordering | Menu on an iPad, split into cafe drinks, desserts and food. Beyond sandwiches there is pasta, gnocchi, risotto and pilaf. We had the scallop gnocchi and the Oase signature sandwich with two americanos |
| Getting there | About ten minutes on foot uphill from Oksu station. No parking; the paid lots at the Rivergen shopping arcade (about eight minutes on foot) or the Geumho Daewoo arcade are the options. Everyone recommends the subway for a reason |
| Korean name | 오아제 브런치 커뮨 |
Up the hill
The street is a good one. From Oksu station you climb a little, past the spire of Geumok Elementary and a row of old shops with colourful awnings, and the cafe sits solidly where the lane ends. The address is Geumho 4-ga, but Oksu station is much closer, so everyone calls it Oksu brunch. One more hill and the Han River view opens up, which makes a walk before or after easy to add. On the river side is the Rivergen apartment arcade; uphill is a wide residential area with redevelopment talk.
The building is Korean through and through, and the space inside is not Korean at all. The facade is dark vertical wood panels with a short grey canopy and a big glass front you can see all the way through, so for a moment you are not sure whether it is a cafe or a concept store. Not minimal; a tidy, well-matched maximalism, with a modest oase logo on the glass. Small potted plants by the door pick up the colour of the brick, and a blue steel ramp runs beside the steps. People with strollers rolled straight up it. Whether it was intended or not, I like a place with that kind of detail.
Downstairs, upstairs
The ground floor is for ordering. Exposed concrete ceiling with a few square light panels, a dark wood counter, an open kitchen behind it, and a cactus as tall as a person growing in a pot in the corner. That many objects without any mess is what sets the first impression: the living room of a Paris apartment, moved here. Behind the counter, six cans of Mutti tomatoes stand in a row on the stainless bar, the grinder is full of beans, and a red brick wall runs behind it like an Italian home kitchen. I trust a place that leaves its cooking in the open. I like minimal rooms myself, and I envy anyone who can do maximal this neatly.
Beside the kitchen is a three-tier wooden dessert display with madeleines and jam bread on blue plates, next to a big window where the Oksu alley and the city towers line up behind the pastries. A small glass cabinet holds a few bottles of Corona and wine. Fridays and Saturdays it stays open until nine, and this corner turns from brunch cafe to neighborhood wine bar. On the wall by the counter are cute posters for an Oase cooking class, colouring sheets for sale, and a map of the second-floor seating, all of which says something about the homely, community-room idea behind the place.
Upstairs is quieter by a whole floor. Round tables in pale wood, square tables, dark wooden chairs paired up, square windows that for a second look like the window of an apartment abroad. The two women at the next table spent a long time photographing the props and the window frames, and I understood why. The building is not new and does not feel old, because the furniture and objects keep pulling your eye. One side opens onto a terrace that looks like an entrance from the street, a small perk of a cafe on a slope. Through the big glass the alley falls away below you, and for a moment it feels like a short trip to a quiet town. There is a hint of Yeonnam-dong. Plenty of single seats here, and people were reading and working alone.
Scallop gnocchi
The first impression of the scallop gnocchi was colour: a plate of green pesto with seared scallops on top and parmesan grated over everything like snow. The gnocchi are dense potato dumplings, chewier than a grain would be. I had worried the pesto would be aggressive, but the basil was soft, the scallops kept their sweetness, and a spoonful of sauce, scallop and gnocchi together was the right bite. Halfway through, the parmesan melted into the pesto and the salt came up, and I alternated basil and iced americano from there. That a neighborhood brunch place cooks at this level surprised me, and it made me curious about the rest of the menu.
The signature sandwich comes standing up, each half wrapped in paper, soft but sturdy bread packed full, too much for one bite, so we took it apart slowly.
The room filled as we ate: a couple with a dog, a family of four with two children, three tables of women taking turns with the camera. A place where you can enjoy watching the tables around you while catching up with a friend is rare, and it works here because the tables are far apart and the rooms are divided.
I’d recommend it to anyone in their thirties meeting an old friend for a weekend brunch, to couples in Oksu or Geumho looking for a weekend date, to families with children who want a brunch room with space, and to neighbors who want a glass of wine on a Friday or Saturday evening. Closed on Sundays, and weekday evenings are out because it shuts at six. Next time I want the Sicilian pasta and the jam bread, and a Friday night with a glass of wine. It is also a place I would bring a friend from abroad, or anyone who lives nearby and has not found it yet.
My rating: 4.5/5. The scallop gnocchi alone is worth the hill.