My Lovely Sam Soon|The Plaza Seoul — The Hotel Across City Hall Square

Na Hyun-sook’s hotel in the drama is The Plaza, the 1976 tower on the south side of Seoul Plaza, facing City Hall. Sam-soon works in its bakery logic even when the pastry kitchen is a set. The bar is where Jin-heon watches her meet an old boyfriend. The pool is members-only. The square outside is not.

You reach the doors from City Hall Station exit 6 in under two minutes. Deoksugung is across the road. The hotel has changed owners and names — Seoul Plaza Hotel, then THE PLAZA Seoul, Autograph Collection — but the address is still 119 Sogong-ro. What the cameras needed was a lobby that looked like money and a window that looked onto a public lawn.

Stand on the square and the building fills the south edge the way it did in 2005. You will not get into the fitness centre without a key card. You do not need one. The pilgrimage is the facade and the lawn. This is the family business the series kept cutting back to, the place a pastry chef was never supposed to belong and kept walking into anyway.