What a Sweet Life with Butter! — If We Had No Butter

BTS sang about pulling you in as smoothly as butter, and a homemade-butter craze swept through social media. Butter has moved so close to our everyday lives that specialty butter shops have begun opening right around the corner. Our editor spent a long while talking butter at one of them, Butter Pantry in Seongsu-dong, and has pulled together the notes from that visit.

Words & Photos Parc Jinmyoung
Interviewee Park Wonji of Butter Pantry

In the film ‘Julie & Julia,’ the characters talk about butter all the time. For instance, “Whenever I taste food, I always ask what went into it. The answer will always be butter,” or “You are the butter to my bread, and the breath to my life.” As the film mentions again and again, butter is an indispensable ingredient in Western cooking. It began as a dairy product that nomads made to make use of surplus milk. Dairy farming arrived late in Korea, so a food culture built around butter felt unfamiliar for quite some time. Recently, though, “homemade butter” has become a trend on social media, and a wide range of dishes made with butter have appeared. As if to prove the trend, last September a finishing-butter specialty shop, Butter Pantry, opened in Seongsu-dong. To hear about butter from its owner, Park Wonji, we knocked on Butter Pantry’s yellow door. What place does butter occupy in her life?

Note 1. Is Butter Just a Passing Trend?

Could you tell us about Butter Pantry?
Butter Pantry started from thinking about how to make food taste better in a simple, easy way. We named our products “finishing butter,” which means the butter acts as a booster that maximizes the flavor of the ingredients and completes a dish.

So “finishing butter” isn’t an existing term?
Abroad, butter made by mixing in other ingredients like this is usually called “compound butter.” But people also use “finishing butter” to mean the same thing. I like the idea that a dish is only complete once butter is set on top as the finishing touch, so that’s the term I use.

How did you get drawn into the world of homemade butter?
For nine years I worked in VM (visual marketing) at a department store, designing the display spaces. Given the job, I liked visiting new places and eating out. Then I wanted to learn more about desserts, so I quit and enrolled at Nakamura Academy near Hakdong Station. While studying pastry there, I fell for butter as an ingredient. There are so many kinds, and I found it fascinating how the flavor of baked goods and of cooking changes depending on which butter you use.

What you do now isn’t entirely unrelated to VM, but it’s still a different path. Didn’t you feel any regret or lingering attachment when you left your job?
Actually, I’m using everything I did at the company in my work now. Setting a concept and designing a space is ultimately branding, so it’s been a big help. Whatever you do, not just in food and beverage, it all connects back to what you used to do.

Note 2. A One-Person Business and a Seongsu-dong Hot Spot

Where did you find inspiration for the brand concept, such as the product packaging and the space?
First, I wanted to create a character that goes well with butter. I’m also a drinker, and butter and wine pair so well that I wanted to sell wine too. That’s how the cow character wearing a grape wreath was born. I told the designer I wanted an illustrated-style cow, but since we also sell wine, a cow alone might seem a bit out of place, and she gave it the wreath. We were in perfect sync. As for the interior, the space is small, so I wanted to put the emphasis on the exterior. I referred a lot to the facades of restaurants and cafés in Europe. Then I came across a vintage door made in England 80 years ago. I saw it in a post by a vintage dealer and had it brought over the very next day. Its size differs from standard Korean doors, so I even had a frame built to fit. The butter-yellow color, slightly worn away by time, and the stained glass were so beautiful that I couldn’t possibly give it up. Wherever I go, I’ll always take this door with me. (Laughs)

Homemade butter has become popular lately. Why do you think that is?
The coronavirus has been spreading for more than two years now, and since people spend more time at home, I think they’re looking for hobbies they can do there. Butter’s popularity began last year when a TV program featured a butter made with lemon and dill. Even if it isn’t butter, I think people enjoy the act of making something itself.

You said you opened last September. Your timing was good.
The timing was right. I had been thinking about opening since early last year, but I got busy with dessert-brand consulting and kept putting it off, then suddenly felt pressed for time. I worried I’d fall behind. So in July 2021 I ran a pop-up store at the brunch café 67 Soho in Nonhyeon-dong, and opened in September.

How is the butter you make at Butter Pantry different from butter made at home?
To make it easily at home, you mostly just prep raw ingredients like lemon, dill, or herbs and mix them into butter. I make all the sauces that go inside myself, then heat them and mix them in. I think that’s where the difference lies.

Do you change the butter lineup you sell?
The seaweed butter, pollock roe butter, and anchovy-olive butter are always available, and we release seasonal products using ingredients in season, such as dried persimmon or tangerines.

Where do you find inspiration for ingredient combinations?
I like exploring new places, going here and there and tasting dishes with combinations I never would have imagined. Coriander pasta, for example. When I was learning desserts, there were items like mousse cakes that aren’t just pretty on the outside but are built from layer upon layer of different textures inside. Studying those, I think I started thinking a lot about combining different ingredients. Butter isn’t only about a smooth texture, either. Last year I made a chocolate butter called Butter Together, topped with a crunchy layer, so it was both smooth and crunchy.

The shop doubles as your workshop. How do you run it?
I open the shop only three days a week: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Since I work alone, there’s so much to do, from producing the products and testing new ones to making cooking content for Instagram, that opening every day would be too much time-wise.

Looking at recent hot spots, including around Seongsu-dong, many have fussy operating hours or reservation systems. Sometimes you make the trip only to find them closed.
In my case, since I work alone, there’s a limit to how much I can produce. So I recommend reserving for pickup online before you visit. Reserved items are set aside, so the shop itself may not have the product you’re looking for in stock. Some days we don’t even have the signature seaweed butter in the shop.

Note 3. Starting a Second Life as a Baker?

You went from office life to running your own business, and in food and beverage, which is said to be the toughest field these days. When did you first feel confident that the products you made would sell?
Given the nature of VM work, I’d spent my career making products look appealing so they’d sell well, so I trusted my own instincts. I had a conviction along the lines of, “If a single slice of butter could make food more delicious, that would be so convenient and nice, and surely there are other people like me.” Back when I worked at a company, the kitchen was pretty much just where I went for water after a night of drinking.

Please recommend your favorite butter and the dish that goes best with it.
My favorite is the seaweed butter. Even while I’m making it, the aroma is wonderful. It has such a nutty scent that you want to spread it on rice and eat it right away. It’s delicious alongside meat or seafood, and it’s good in potatoes, fish cake, or pasta, too. It’s a butter that tastes great just about anywhere you put it.

What butter do you use at Butter Pantry?
I use two: Elle & Vire and Paysan Breton. Ordinary cultured butters are mostly similar. They’re made by adding cultures to the raw milk of healthy, grass-fed cows raised in a clean environment, and they’re differentiated by texture and color. Paysan Breton has a lovely ivory color and a wonderful texture when melted, so I use it.

Besides butter, what other ingredients interest you?
I’m very interested in seasonings like salt and pepper. Baking calls for only tiny amounts of them, but you can’t do without either. Salt tastes salty, but it also makes sweetness stand out more. Back when I didn’t know much about salt, I used whatever was around. Then I learned more as I studied cooking. At Butter Pantry, I use sun-dried sea salt made in Sinan. It’s less salty and the grains are fine, so it blends evenly with the other ingredients. The same goes for pepper. Depending on which pepper I use, the butter ends up with a different flavor.

Note 4. Butter on the Road…

What’s your travel style?
I’m not normally the planning type, but when I travel, I book every restaurant from Korea before I go. I even set my itinerary around the dates and times when I can get reservations. It’s strictly about the food. If I don’t go then, I’ll never get to eat there.

Do you have any travel stories involving butter?
I usually skip breakfast, but when I travel, I always make sure to eat the hotel breakfast. In Cuba, the bread had lard (pork fat) in it, maybe, because it dried out and hardened quickly and didn’t taste good. But once I spread butter on it, the bread suddenly became rich and nutty.

So the saying ‘Good butter makes a good day’ can apply this way, too.
Exactly. I wasn’t even interested in butter back then, but looking back now, that one piece of butter played a really big role.

Is there anywhere you’d like to go?
I’ve only been to Paris in France. But Normandy and Brittany in the northwest are famous for dairy farming, right? Most of the well-known butters, like Isigny and Pays de la Gratonne, come from those regions, so I’d love to visit. I want to go there and eat my fill of baked goods, bread, and dishes made with butter, along with wine.

Tell us about your plans for the future.
First, I’d like to increase my butter production a bit. For now I still do it alone, but someday I might be able to get help from other people and produce larger quantities. That way, more people could taste Butter Pantry’s high-quality, delicious butter.

Do you have any personal goals?
I feel like if I say my goals out loud, I’ll have to keep them. There’s really a lot I want to do. I’d like to write recipes using butter, too, but I think that’s a very distant future.

Note 5. After the interview, I bought some of Butter Pantry’s butter. Being Korean to the bone, I found the taste unfamiliar on my tongue. It happened to be the Lunar New Year, so I sent some as a gift, and I hear the recipient savored it sparingly over the three-week recommended shelf life.