Repeating retro meals in teen-town Tokyo – A visit to Ikebukuro’s Takase

Time feels like it’s standing still in this downtown Tokyo dining complex with over a century of history.

In a city as big and bustling as Tokyo, you can always find examples of the old being swept aside to make way for the new. That doesn’t mean that nothing lasts for very long in Tokyo, though, or that you have to venture all the way into the deepest corners of the back alleys to find those connections to the past. For example, right across the street from Ikebukuro Station, one of the busiest rail hubs in the city, it Takase, a bakery that was founded more than 100 years ago and is still in business today.

▼ Takase bakery

Thousands of people walk by the Takase bakery every day on their way to or from Ikebukuro’s east exit, and the first-floor bakery is a tempting place to pick up a pastry while you’re waiting for the intersection’s signal light to change. But what a lot of people don’t realize is that Takase actually has four spaces within the building, and in addition to the bakery there’s a cafe on the second floor, a restaurant on the third, and a coffee lounge on the ninth.

▼ The sign for the cafe (喫茶室), restaurant (グリル), and coffee lounge (コーヒーラウンジ)

Though the bakery came first, in 1920, Takase’s other ventures have been around for quite a while too, and the restaurant has now been serving customers for more than 70 years. So we decided to stop by and try it for ourselves, showing up nice and early at 10 a.m….only to find out that the restaurant doesn’t open until 11.

Lucky for us, though, the cafe is open from 9, so we could have breakfast there. Right away, the cafe’s display case shows off some retro kissa (cafe) charm, with a full array of the sort of plastic food models that are becoming less and less common in modern-day Japan.

▼ Cafe interior photo from the Takase website

The interior is spacious, and to our surprise, almost every seat was full. Takase is apparently one of those “if you know, you know” kind of places, which maybe we should have expected from someplace that’s been in business so long.

Since pancakes are never a bad decision, we ordered the Morning Pancake Set for 700 yen (US$4.40), which is available from 9 to 11 a.m. It comes with your choice of coffee, tea, or milk, and if you go with hot coffee, refills are free.

Snagging a seat by the window, we looked out towards the intersection between the cafe and the station. Watching the people walking by in their contemporary attire while sitting in the cafe’s old-school atmosphere, we felt we’d stepped through a portal in time.

In keeping with that appealing nostalgic simplicity, the pancakes play it straight, with no mountain of whipped cream, unorthodox toppings, or other attempts to curry favor on social media. They’re good old-fashioned pancakes, fluffy and delicious.

As we sipped our coffee and relaxed, we glanced at our watch and saw that it was now 11 a.m., which meant Takase’s restaurant, one floor above the cafe, was now open, so up the stairs we went.

Again, the storefront, with its glass case of food models and handwritten signs announcing the day’s specials, gives off the feel of a simpler, more hands-on era.

▼ Restaurant interior photo from the Takase website

As we mentioned above, the restaurant has been in business for more than 70 years, and their commitment to doing things the old-fashioned way is so strong that they don’t use any frozen or pre-cut ingredients, instead going to the extra trouble to make every meal special and tasty, That doesn’t translate into exorbitantly high prices, though: the limited-quantity weekday special lunch, which comes with two main items, rice or bread, soup, and a drink, is just 990 yen (US$6.15), and hamburger steak is just 1,300.

On this day, the special was chicken piccata and fried cod.

Chicken piccata actually isn’t something you see on menus in Japan all that often, so this was a rare treat for our taste buds. We’re not sure how many of the restaurant’s 70-plus years that day’s chef has been working in the kitchen for, but the chicken was expertly prepared and delicious.

The same was true of the fish, which was cooked to perfection so that the breading was nice and crispy but the inside moist and juicy.

Having eaten breakfast and lunch back to back, we were quite full, but also very happy as we drank our second post-meal coffee.

With its shopping centers and otaku-oriented attractions, Ikebukuro has a bit of a reputation as a trendy teen town, but Takase shows that there’s still a place in the neighborhood for timeless charm, and it’s someplace we see ourselves going back to soon, since now we want to check out the ninth-floor coffee lounge too.

Location information
Takase / タカセ
Address: Tokyo-to, Toshima-ku, Higashi Ikebukuro 1-1-4, Takase Central Building
東京都豊島区東池袋1丁目1-4 タカセセントラルビル
Cafe open 9 a.m.-7:30 p.m. (weekdays), 9 a.m.-8 p.m. (weekends, holidays)
Restaurant open 11 a.m.-4 p.m., 5 p.m.-9 p.m.
Website

Top image: SoraNews24
Insert images: SoraNews24, Takase
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