Although Tokyo has always been home to a café culture all its own, it's worth bearing in mind that the average café in the Japanese capital was brought over from Europe and the US many, many moons ago, along with all the quaint restaurants and eateries serving tweaked "Western" fare. Until fairly recently, there was still a conspicuous gap waiting to be filled, somewhere in between the prim and proper traditional tea rooms where elegant ladies gather for scones and tea, and the retro kissaten coffee shops where grizzled old men painstakingly prepare drip coffee with manually operated filters and siphons while the moody patrons chain smoke to their heart's content.
Luckily that gap is starting to be filled: a new wave of cafés with a more distinct, freewheeling vibe, taking their cues from the coffee culture of places like Melbourne, San Francisco, London, and Brooklyn. If you're visiting Tokyo soon, make sure to stop by some of these cafés for a quick bite, a caffeine pitstop and a spot of people-watching in between your shopping sprees.
Cover image: Commes des Garçons' Marunouchi flagship with Rose Bakery in the entrance -- Courtesy of naoyafuji via Flickr
Tucked away on a quiet street corner in residential Shirokanedai, this lush, green hideaway takes its name from the word “biotope”, which refers to an ecosystem that is maintained in its natural state. Conceived by creative director Takashi Kumagai and opened in March 2010, it features a cozy tree house designed by Takashi Kobayashi nestled in the branches of a giant oak tree on the front patio, a third-floor café called Irving Place produced by Uichi Yamamoto (the man behind other Tokyo cafés like Bowery Kitchen and montoak) that serves fresh salads, grilled meats, and other Californian-inspired fare, and a first-floor shop filled with natural cosmetics by Aesop and John Masters Organics, clothes from Junya Watanabe, Stella McCartney, Toga, and Acne — and, of course, Adam et Ropé — plus lots of plants and gardening supplies.
4-6-44 Shirokanedai, Minato-ku
+81-3-5449-7720.
This retail, café and exhibition space opened on the quiet stretch in Minami Aoyama in August 2012 and quickly became an essential stop on the fashionista circuit, popular with scenesters looking for an expertly edited fix of both Japanese and international designers, including Bless, Ann Demeulemeester, Charles Anastase, and Yuima Nakazato. Customers can chill in the sparely decorated industrial chic café while leafing through cult magazines like Fantastic Man, Huge, and The Gentlewoman. By night, the basement space morphs into a casually hip party venue that has previously hosted after parties for Opening Ceremony, book launches for photographer Tim Barber, and talks by graphic designer Theseus Chan.
5-11-9 B1F, Minami Aoyama, Minato-ku
+81-3-6427-4779.
Just down the street from Maison Kitsuné’s standalone Aoyama boutique, this little nook, opened in February this year, mimics the intimate, dark-wooded space of a traditional low-rise Japanese house. Enjoy a carefully prepared espresso drink on the slender outdoor courtyard enclosed by a bamboo fence before wandering inside to explore a small selection of Kitsuné’s casual staples, CDs from their in-house collection, and the beautiful interior that reworks classic Japanese motifs, including the tiny carved wooden sculptures of kitsuné foxes perched against the back wall of the barista counter.
3-17-1 Minami Aoyama, Minato-ku
+81-3-5786-4842.
Since opening in 2002 in Paris, this little bakery-café has become something of a cult hangout, thanks in part to its reputation as one of Comme des Garçons’ founder Rei Kawakubo favorite lunch spots whenever she’s in Paris. Kawakubo later invited owners Rose and Jean-Charles Carrarini to open a branch inside CdG’s flagship Marunouchi store in Februrary 2011, with a second Tokyo outlet in Kichijoji later that year. The best Tokyo outpost of Rose Bakery, however, is on the top floor of Kawakubo’s Dover Street Market Ginza, which tends to get less mobbed, and is a rare oasis of calm on late weekday afternoons and evenings. The quiches, scones, and sandwiches are carefully prepared using only the best organic French Lescure butter and Viron flour, and the carrot, pistachio, and polenta cakes are densely satisfying without being too rich. Bonus: last time we checked, there was free wifi.
Dover Street Market Ginza
Ginza Komatsu West, 6-9-5 Ginza, Chuo-ku
+813-5537-5038
The New York borough of Brooklyn has been something of an obsession for Tokyo hipsters for several years now — a catch-all buzzword for anything “artisanal," produced in small batches with loving precision, weekend flea markets full of funky jewelry and organic local produce. This basement Shinjuku café tries to replicate the raucous vibe of Brooklyn’s all-day pubs and brick-walled, industrial-finish cafes — and largely succeeds. Plush leather sofas, long, battered common tables for sharing, a music selection that generally gets it, and a copious selection of art, fashion and design-related magazines and books for browsing all contribute to the easygoing vibe. The burgers are actually pretty good, the wifi is free-flowing, and they even have a decent selection of draft beers and bottled pale ales from Brooklyn-based breweries.
Shinjuku Marui Annex B1F
3-1-26 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku
+81-3-6457-7763
Taking cues from the coffee culture of Melbourne, San Francisco, London, and Brooklyn, a new wave of freewheeling cafés are caffeinating cognescenti in the capital