Some of Instagram’s Most Picturesque Pastries Find a Permanent Home in Highland Park

After years of serving some of Los Angeles’s most picturesque pastries out of coffee shops and restaurants, Jiyoon Jang, the baker behind By Jiyoon, opens her standalone bakery and cafe today, October 9. Modu Cafe is a culmination of the last few years of hard work and experimentation in the kitchen, which began when Jang started baking at home during the pandemic. Modu, a Korean word, translates to “all” or “everything,” but Jang sees it as a representation of the new business. “I wanted it to be all aspects of what we’re doing have the qualities of intentionality, attention to detail, and hospitality,” she says.

The sun-drenched location along York Boulevard in Highland Park serves a selection of Jang’s classic sweets like chewy dark chocolate mochi brownies, barley tea-infused boricha madeleines, hojicha mochi muffins, and miso and misugaru cookies, which blend the depth of miso with the nutty roasted grain powder. The cafe also serves a full coffee and tea menu, with a focus on matcha, available both as a latte and in a matcha tonic.

Like so many others during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jang picked up baking as a pastime. She tended to her sourdough starter and experimented with different hydrations, churning out boules from her home kitchen. She started photographing and posting her bakes on Instagram as she branched out into brown butter chocolate chip cookies, sourdough doughnuts, matcha milk bread, and, eventually, croissants.

Realizing that she wanted to pursue baking as more than just a hobby, Jang applied for a job at Clark Street Bakery in 2021. Although she didn’t have any formal training as a baker, the hiring manager at Clark Street saw the photos she posted on her Instagram and asked if she would be interested in doing photography while working at the bakery. “I got really lucky with Clark Street because I was able to take on a lot of responsibility,” Jang says. “So I learned a lot in that bakery setting.”

While working at Clark Street, Jang kept using her Instagram as a baking portfolio, and the account began to gain traction. She started to experiment with baking drops, offering pre-orders for black sesame dark chocolate cookies, matcha mochi muffins, and espresso dark chocolate cookies. In 2022, Jang felt like it was time to move to the next thing, and left her job at Clark Street to focus on her burgeoning pop-up. “I think I have a good intuition of when I feel like I’ve outgrown a certain space or just a certain job role,” she says.

For five months after leaving Clark Street, Jang did pop-ups and developed new recipes. Then in the summer of 2022, she joined forces with Koreatown hospitality group In Hospitality to work as the executive pastry chef of its new bakery, Mil. When the bakery closed in February 2023, Jang returned to working on her pop-ups and pastry drops full-time, with the dream of one day opening her own cafe.

That dream started to materialize in early 2024 when Jang began seriously looking for spaces. The space that now houses Modu was just the second location she looked at. She signed a lease in March and started work on the interior in May. Her initial vision was for something moody with dark wood, but after consulting with a contractor and woodworker recommended by Mandarin Coffee’s owners, Jang opted for a lighter interior with ash wood, high ceilings, and light grey lime-washed walls. “It’s a little different than what people expect from me, but it still has those clean, simple elements.”

Although Jang uses Korean ingredients and flavors in her pastries, she shies away from Modu being labeled a Korean bakery. “I think also people have a certain perception of Korean bakery,” Jang says. “Not that it’s bad, but I wanted to offer something different that’s my own style, without being labeled as something that people only know just because they’re, ‘Oh, [you’re] Korean, another Korean bakery.’”

Jang says the process of developing pastries can pose challenges for her as a self-taught baker. “Creating pastries is an internal struggle for me because I don’t have that professional pastry experience,” she says. “I didn’t go to pastry school, so there are some techniques that I might have heard about or read about, but I’ve never done it.” Sometimes, when she’s developing a new item, she’ll have an idea for a flavor or final product and work backward to figure out how to get there. As part of that process, she taps nostalgic flavors like perilla leaf, which she candies and serves on top of a tart. “I wanted to introduce those flavors, not in such an in-your-face type of way,” Jang says. “But in a way where, people are like, ‘Oh, that’s familiar, but also looks really interesting. I’ve never had that before, so let me try.’”

As Modu opens its doors Jang is excited to see the people who used to buy her cookies on Instagram. “I’m just excited to see my customers again,” she says. “I think there’s been people that have supported me from the first pastry box drop I did. I’m just excited for that opening day where I hope everyone will come in and just be really impressed by the work we put in.” She’s looking forward to the operational side as well, and establishing workflows with her team as they settle into the groove.

For now, Modu only serves pastries, coffee, and tea, but with a full kitchen, Jang hopes to eventually serve a full food menu, and expand into night hours with wine and beer.

Modu Cafe is located at 5805 York Boulevard, Unit A, Los Angeles, CA 90042, and holds hours from Wednesday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.