'It feels more real here': Parisians flock to Korea House for tteokbokki and Cass during Paris Olympics

During the 2024 Paris Olympics, Korean street food and Cass beer drew crowds at Korea House, offering a taste of Korea.

Visitors of OB's Cass booth enjoy cups of beer on the sidelines of a cultural exhibition at Korea House in Paris. [OB]

PARIS — Paris may be one of the culinary capitals of the world. But for a few weeks on Rue Saint-Dominique, it's not macarons and croissants that people are queuing up for — it’s mandu. And Cass.

Korea’s culinary highlights — or, at least, its most famous light beer and a small range of products from CJ CheilJedang’s Bibigo line — took center stage at the Korea House in Paris, the cultural headquarters of Team Korea during the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Set up like food trucks in the garden, the Bibigo and Cass stalls serve a very international crowd of visitors at the house — which is known, when Korea is not claiming it, as the Maison de la Chimie. Within its walls are K-pop exhibitions and K-culture photo booths galore, but food is only allowed in the garden where a big screen broadcasts Korea’s biggest sporting moments.

A crowd of people line up to enter a Bibigo booth. [CJ]

The Bibigo booth serves tteokbokki, or spicy rice cakes, mandu, or Korean dumplings, and jumeokbap, or rice balls, in various combinations. Oriental Brewery's (OB's) Cass booth — which evokes the concept of pocha, Korea’s street drink stalls — is keeping it simple: It's Cass.

The wait time to enter Korea House currently averages two hours, according to a spokesperson at OB. An average of 3,500 people had visited the venue per day, totaling 28,000, as of Aug. 1.

Food was part of the draw for some of the punters on Monday when the Korea JoongAng Daily visited.

“Our friends said the food here is good,” Marie, 24, told the Korea JoongAng Daily as she and two friends carried cardboard trays of mandu and tteokbokki. “I’ve had this all before, but it feels more real here.”

CJ had prepared the popular street foods for 500 people; they sold out within four hours of the venue's 11 a.m. opening.

People look around the Cass booth on Monday. [JIM BULLEY]

Marie and her friends likely already have easy access to Korean food. French newspaper Le Monde reported last year that the number of Korean restaurants in Paris has increased from 40 to 200 in the last 20 years, suggesting that tteokbokki is already available to any Parisian who wants some.

But that doesn’t seem to have dulled the attraction of the Bibigo stand at Korea House, which perhaps offers a slightly more authentic-feeling experience, even from a brand that is best known globally for frozen dumplings.

The Cass is also flowing in the Paris heat, with most visitors in the garden standing with a half-drunk cup of Cass in hand.

BY JIM BULLEY, PARK EUN-JEE [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]