초록색 방울토마토는 여름 햇살에 흠뻑 젖어 빨갛게 익을 때를 기다리고 있고, 로메인은 에메랄드 빛을 띠는 줄기를 따라 풍성하게 자란다.
가로수길 카페 에이블의 옥상정원은 요즘의 ‘힐링’과 ‘웰빙’ 트렌드와 맥을 같이 하는 듯 전원적이고 소박한 느낌을 풍겼다.
지난 여름 문을 연 꽃 집 겸 카페 에이블의 차은영(36) 실장은 어떻게 정원을 만들게 되었냐는 질문에 “그 어느 것 하나 낭비하지 않고, 모두 사용을 해야겠다고 생각하는 데서 시작됐다“고 말했다.
그는 “식물을 키우는 데 옥상을 이용하기로 했다”며 “이곳에서 손님들은 좌석을 위해 기다릴 수 있고, 직원들은 쉴 수 있다”고 말했다.
카페를 찾는 방문객들 사이에서 옥상정원은 “가로수 길 비밀의 정원”으로 불린다.
외부에서는 카페 내부에 무엇이 있는지 전혀 알 수가 없고, 한 층 더 올라가서 볼 수 있는 다이닝 룸에서도 바로 위층에 정원이 있다는 것을 눈치챌 수 있는 사람은 아무도 없을 것 같았다.
그러나 바로 그 옥상에서 땅 위에서나 가능할 것 같은 실용적인 식물재배가 이루어지고 있었다.
차씨는 또한 만개한 루콜라, 비타민, 애플 민트와 로즈마리를 보여주며 “종종 정원에서 꽃꽂이 클래스도 열린다”고 말했다.
페스타가 모든 것이 잘 갖춰진 느낌이라면, 모제인송은 부티크스러운 느낌의 정원이 있다.
지난 4월, 패션 브랜드 “제인 송”의 컨셉스토어로써 카페 “모”가 문을 열었다.
카페 모 입구의 좁은 길 옆으로 줄지어 서있는 나무를 따라 가면 만개한 꽃들로 뒤덮인 계단이 보인다. 이곳을 올라가면 블루베리, 커피와 파피루스가 심어져 있는 테라스로 이어진다.
홍보담당자 오초롱(28)씨는 “여기에는 약 50 종류의 식물이 자라고 있다”며 계속해서 새로운 식물군이 들어오고 있다고 말했다.
방문객들은 1층에서 디자이너 제인 송의 콜렉션을 볼 수 있고, 2층에서는 원예 도구들과 화분을 볼 수 있다.
2층에 있는 카페에서는 시원한 커피와 음료도 즐길 수 있다.
오씨는 정원의 만개한 식물들과 화분을 가리키며 “이것들은 판매를 하기도 한다”고 말했다.
반얀트리 페스타 비스트로의 매니저 임씨는 “요즘 옥상은 굉장히 핫한 공간으로 떠올랐다”며 “사람들은 실내 공간에 염증을 느끼고 야외로 나오고 싶어한다”고 말했다.
또한 카페 에이블의 실장 차씨는 “예전과는 달리 주 5일 일하고 금요일부터 일요일까지 휴일을 즐기려는 사람들 사이에서 캠핑이 하나의 문화로서 인기를 끌고 있으며, 많은 사람들이 가방을 챙겨 다른 곳으로 떠나고 싶어한다”고 말했다.
그는 “하지만 매주 여행을 떠나기는 쉽지 않다. 따라서 이곳을 방문하게 되면 야외에 있다는 느낌을 받으면서도 도시에서 느낄 수 없는 새로움을 느낄 수 있다”고 말했다. 그는 “자연을 접하고 싶어하는 사람들에게 카페는 그러한 경험을 제공할 수 있다고 생각한다”며 고객들이 “옥상이 제공하는 한적하고 외딴 느낌을 선호한다”고 덧붙였다.
옥상에 있으니 마치 도시에서 벗어난 외딴 곳에 있다는 느낌을 받았다. 마치 꽃들과 나무 외엔 아무것도 존재하지 않는 평화로운 공간에 있는 것처럼 말이다. (번역 이아란 인턴 기자)
<관련 영문 기사>
Roof garden-clad shops
Kicker: Restaurants, concept stores go green on top
Cherry tomatoes, still green, soak in the summer sun, taking their sweet time to ripen. Romaine lettuce blooms in long, emerald stalks.
The roof garden at Garosu-gil-based cafe Able is a pastoral scene of rustic charm, a scene that seems to be in tune with today’s “healing” and “well-being” trends.
“We felt the need to not waste anything, to use everything,” Able co-owner Cha Eun-young said on how the garden came into being when the flower shop-cafe opened in Seoul last summer.
“We decided we could use the roof to grow plants,” Cha, 36, elaborated. “It could be a place for customers to wait for seating in our cafe and for our staff to rest.”
According to Cha, customers are pleasantly surprised with the roof space and refer to it as “Garosu-gil secret garden.”
Indeed, when seen from the outside, Able gives little indication of what it houses behind its doors.
Even when one first steps into the second-floor cafe, where customers dine on salads, sandwiches and cold-pressed juices, one may not notice that up a flight of stairs waits a garden.
Yet, there it is: pure, lush greenery, one of those practical, rather than ornamental, gardens, continually growing and producing edible herbs and vegetables -- only instead of it happening on the ground, it is all on a roof.
“We also occasionally hold flower classes in our roof garden,” Cha said, revealing that in addition to tomatoes and lettuce, rucola, vitamins, apple mint and rosemary also thrive there.
Able is not the only establishment in Seoul to go green on top.
Concept store-cafe “MO jain song” and Banyan Tree Club and Spa’s The Festa also house roof gardens.
“Our roof garden opened two weeks ago,” said The Festa Bistro and Bar outlet manager Jay Lim, who explained that while the space was there since the spa-club opened in 2009, it was not in full operation.
“Now is the right season to be outdoors,” Lim, 38, said. “So we are serving beer and barbecue.”
As befits a building with a restaurant on the ground floor that dishes up European fare and comes fully outfitted with a bar, The Festa’s roof garden is a posh, resort-style space, with cream-colored, tented gazebos, neatly trimmed trees and a fountain.
A large-scale affair, the terrace boasts around 80 seats and is seemingly designed to provide customers with an even quieter, getaway-style outdoor spot for sitting back and relaxing within the already somewhat sequestered spa-club.
“From our garden you can see Namsan and the skyline,” Lim said. “So it really feels like one is outdoors.”
Unlike Able, which is also open during the day, The Festa’s roof garden only comes to life at night, 8:30 p.m. to be exact, catering to patrons who want to snack on skewers and down a few pints of beer after a long, hot day.
If The Festa is a full-fledged eatery, MO Jain Song is more of a boutique-style space.
The first concept store of fashion brand “jain song,” MO opened in Hannam-dong this April.
At MO, a narrow, tree-lined path leads to a flower-laden space, with stairs leading straight up to terraces housing everything from blueberry to coffee to papyrus plants.
“About 50 varieties are grown here,” said PR manager Oh Cho-rong, who revealed that new flora are continually being added to the gardens.
Within the store, customers can find designer Jain Song’s collections on the first floor and gardening tools and pots for the D.I.Y. gardener on the second floor.
A quaint cafe is also located on the second floor, providing shoppers with frosty iced coffee and other beverages.
“All our plants are also for sale,” said Oh, 28, gesturing to the various pots of blooms and other flora populating the store’s gardens.
Noting the salad greens growing on the roof garden, Oh also pointed out the bokbunja (Korean raspberries) and strawberries grown there.
“Rooftop venues are very popular these days,” said The Festa’s Lim, who believes that “people are tired of being indoors” and warm to the idea of going “outdoors in the city.”
“Unlike the past, people now work five days a week,” Able’s Cha said, referring to when six-day work weeks were once the norm. “Since people can start to play from Friday night to Sunday, camping as a culture has taken off and there is that desire to pack up one’s things and go somewhere.”
“But one might not always be able to take that weekend trip,” she continued. “So if one comes to a place like this, there is that feeling of being outdoors and the novelty itself of a space like this.
“I think people really crave nature and the wild, and I believe cafes are providing that sort of experience,” Cha said of establishments with roof gardens. “Customers like the privacy of the roof.”
Indeed, there is a sense of being isolated from one’s urban surroundings when in a roof garden, as if one has entered a peaceful space, removed from everywhere else, made all the more tranquil by flowers and trees.
MO jain song; 739-6 Hannam-dong, Yongsan-gu, Seoul; (02) 797-6231; open daily from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., beverages cost around 4,000 won to 6,000 won
Able; 2F, 547-6 Sinsa-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul; (02) 3445-7335; open daily from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m., till 10 p.m. Sundays; salads and sandwiches cost 9,000 won to 13,000 won, coffee and tea costs 5,000 won to 7,000 won
The Festa; Banyan Tree Club and Spa Seoul, Jang Chung Dan-ro 60, Jung-gu, Seoul; (02) 2250-8080;
www.banyantreeclub.net; roof garden terrace open from 8:30 p.m. to midnight Mondays through Saturdays, till 11 p.m. Sundays; open to non-members; snacks cost 4,000 won to 50,000 won, buy one, get one free beer promotion 11,000 won
By Jean Oh
(
oh_jean@heraldcorp.com)
![[Today’s K-pop] Blackpink’s Jennie, Lisa invited to Coachella as solo acts](http://res.heraldm.com/phpwas/restmb_idxmake.php?idx=644&simg=/content/image/2024/11/21/20241121050099_0.jpg)
