Cafe Chairo is a super cozy, completely vegan cafe for Japanese sweets and tea in the heart of Harajuku, Tokyo. The interior is very unique, combining traditional Japanese elements with a modern interpretation, keeping everything in soft pastel colors.
About Cafe Chairo
Cafe Chairo is a delightful Japanese-style café for traditional sweets and tea - all vegan. It was relocated from Kichijoji to Harajuku in 2021.
The amazing thing about the café is that everything is hand-made and prepared freshly with great attention to detail. For milk options, they use rice milk and cashew milk which they produce themselves, using only natural ingredients and no preservatives or artificial additives. Same goes for their anko (sweet bean paste made from azuki beans) and fruit sauces made from seasonal fruit, kuro mitsu (syrup made from brown sugar) and yuzu mitsu (syrup made from yuzu). Furthermore, all ingredients are sourced from Japan.
However, what I love most about Cafe Chairo are the beautiful interior and cozy atmosphere. Even from the outside, the building has a traditional Japanese flair.
Upon entering, guests are supposed to take their shoes off and store them in the shelf on the left side.
The the corridor is really special and beautiful as it is basically filled with pebbles and has stepping stones to walk on.
There floor on the seating areas looks similar to tatami, but actually consists of a pastel colored carpet. Instead of chairs, customers sit on huge, super soft and fluffy cushions which feel extremely comfortable. Even the ceiling is decorated beautifully.
The whole color scheme of the café is soft, pastel and beige colors which is very relaxing. The tables are decorated with colored pebbles and beautiful flowers. Whenever I’m there, I literally feel all my stress melt away.
The highlight: This super cute and friendly cat which loves to get petted by the customers.
About their food
Drinks
They have different teas and special drinks to choose from, or you can also create your own drink by choosing a base tea and toppings, which is really cool!
For this, you can pick for example matcha, houjicha (roasted green tea), sencha, high quality green tea, roasted rice tea, mugi cha (barley tea) or soba cha (buckwheat tea). After choosing the base, you can decide if you want to have the tea hot or cold, straight, as latte (with rice milk or cashew milk) or with additional water. Toppings are grapes, anko, karume yaki (foam candy made from brown sugar), kuro mitsu, and yuzu (a kind of citrus fruit).
Food
For food, Cafe Chairo offers a variety of vegan, traditional Japanese sweets. This includes miso dango (miso is a salty, fermented paste, often made from soy beans), matcha an muffins, cinnamon muffins with houjicha, matcha o shiru ko (sweet red bean and matcha soup with mochi), cinnamon rolls, and yatsuhashi with seasonal fruit
There are also two sets for 1300¥ each: the miso dango together with matcha (hot or iced) a kind of cinnamon roll with houjicha (hot or cold). For an extra 70¥ - 200¥ you can transform the drink into a latte or/and choose one of the toppings I mentioned earlier.
The menu includes information about the ingredients, teas, each dish as well as instructions on how to eat them, which is quite interesting and useful. However, everything is written in Japanese.
My Thoughts
When I saw pictures of the amazing food and the beautiful interior on Instagram, I knew I had to visit Cafe Chairo. The first time I went there, I chose the dango with hot matcha. The second time I tried the matcha 0 shiru ko and karume yaki milk.
miso dango
Dango are my favorite Japanese sweets, so I had to order them! While dango usually comes on a stick, these were different. Each one was placed on a separate spoon together with a sweet and salty syrup made from miso and caramel. Additionally, the left dango comes with matcha powder and the right one with houjicha powder on top, while the middle one is just pure miso caramel.
I chose it as a set with hot matcha. The matcha was strong and very good!
matcha o shiru ko
The matcha o shiru ko consists of three parts: anko, warm matcha soup and mochi.
In order to eat it, pour the matcha onto the anko and then add the mochi on top. While the anko is sweet, the bitter matcha balances the taste perfectly. The mochi is baked and goes very well with it. So far, this dessert is my favourite there!
karume yaki milk
The karume yaki milk was very yummy, too! The karume yaki basically was like big, crispy pieces of brown sugar on top of the milk, so it was quite sweet. It comes with a spoon, so that you can eat the karume yaki. If you wait too long, it will slowly dissolve into the milk, making it similar to caramel milk.
I really recommend the café for a cozy and chilled afternoon in Harajuku, either alone or with friends.
Price span:
450¥ - 1600¥
Opening hours:
12:30 - 19:00
Address:
〒150-0001 Tokyo, Shibuya City, Jingumae, 5 Chome−11−13 茶庵表参道 1階
Instagram:
Check out my Kyoto Sightseeing x Vegan Food guides
