'The pinnacle of fruit desserts is the taste': Patisserie Fruits chef Im Ha-seon

"I want to be remembered as a dessert brand that does fruit really well."

On Wednesday afternoon, Patisserie Fruits in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, was packed with customers despite it being a weekday. As mousse cakes sculpted to look exactly like real fruit arrived at tables, guests reached for their phones. All around the shop, people filmed the moment a chocolate-coated shell cracked open with a satisfying crunch.

Patisserie Fruits is the dessert brand that sparked the fruit-shaped mousse cake craze in South Korea. Word of mouth on SNS has drawn such intense attention that customers line up before the store opens. Starting Friday, the brand is also running a pop-up store at the 29CM Iguhome Seongsu Branch 2.

Chef Im Ha-seon, who leads Patisserie Fruits, said the brand first went viral on SNS for its striking visuals — but added that what keeps people coming back is ultimately the taste.

Quality is also what Im considers most important. "Fruit matters, but the difference in quality really shows in the basics — fresh cream, butter, chocolate," she said. "I apply techniques I learned in France to bring out every detail."

That commitment to taste is evident in how new products are developed. Each item goes through a minimum of three months of testing, and sometimes more than a year. Im will not serve a product to customers until it delivers exactly the flavor and texture she is aiming for.

That philosophy traces back to her years in France. Im originally studied cooking there and worked as a chef before returning to Korea during the COVID-19 pandemic. She had planned to go back to France, but the brand she started in Korea took off faster than expected, and she committed fully to running Patisserie Fruits.

"Dessert was what comforted me through the hard moments when I was working as a chef in France," Im said. "That's how I naturally grew interested in French desserts — I was drawn to the way French pastry brings out the flavor and texture of fruit."

That became the brand's identity: maximizing the taste of raw ingredients. Making fruit-shaped cakes was never the plan from the outset — it started as a symbol of the brand's ambition to be the best at working with fruit. The store currently sells 12 varieties of fruit-shaped mousse cake. The lineup began in 2021 with just two — peach and pear — and has grown steadily through ongoing product development. Daily output is at least 500 pieces. Because quality comes first, everything is made by hand rather than in a factory.

Im recalled a moment that reinforced why output matters. "An elementary school student from Ulsan once came all the way to Seoul with their parents just to try the mousse cake," she said. "When customers like that leave without being able to buy anything, I feel terrible — so I temporarily stopped selling other menu items to increase production."

Looking ahead, Patisserie Fruits plans to expand beyond fruit-shaped cakes into classic French desserts, with fruit tarts and nut-based desserts among the new items in development.

The long-term goal is to go overseas, with the United States as the first market Im wants to enter. "It's a market with such a diverse range of consumers — I think we can really show what makes us unique," she said. "Rather than growing too fast, I want to grow at a pace I can manage while maintaining quality."

She added that her ultimate goal is for Patisserie Fruits to be the first brand people think of when they think of fruit desserts. "Even beyond fruit-shaped cakes, I want to build a reputation as the brand that handles fruit better than anyone else," she said.