Ogawa Coffee Sakura Shimmachi
The Kyoto company’s design masterpiece in the quiet station of Sakura Shimmachi.
Admittedly, I often search Google Maps and the web for places before I go to them because there are just too many options to randomly go without basic prioritization. Most times you can get a good idea about the relative quality of one place vs. another in a similar location using the photos, the numerical rating etc. but sometimes, especially when there are odd cultural or consumer differences at play, the rating can be wildly askew. Ogawa is one such place. Frankly, Google’s 3.9 rating of Ogawa, while the local Starbucks has a 4.1 is one of the most egregious examples of this kind of mis-rating bias that I’ve ever seen, and to a large extent, it’s why I felt compelled to write my own review.
In short, Ogawa is one of the best cafes in Tokyo and anywhere in the world. I’ll try to touch upon some of the implied negatives and then make my case as to the standout qualities so that you can self-sort about whether this is your kind of place or not.
First off, Sakura Shimmachi is not a major station so some people may feel it is too far to visit. Is 15 minutes from the 3rd largest station in Japan too far for you? Maybe? Is 30 minutes from the largest station in the world too far for you? Is under one hour travel from anywhere in Tokyo for one of the finest cafes in the world too far for you? I think you can see where I’m going with this. Personally I’ve flown across the world to have my favourite tea, so you know where I stand on a 30-minute commute to a great place. It’s utterly irrelevant.
Another oft-noted point - Ogawa is busy/there’s a line/it’s trendy/it’s famous etc. Fine, totally understood. If there’s a line at Starbucks or any chain I’m walking right by to a better option. If there’s a line at a place I want to go to, I’ll go back later. But there lines with a pot of gold at the end, and if you can’t tell the difference, you probably shouldn’t be writing reviews, even on Google.
I went on Sunday around 10am on a long weekend and waited only 10 minutes. How impatient do you have to be for this to be a problem? It seems selfishly arrogant in context. The relatively short wait was made very easy by the visual spectacle on offer, starting right astride the line is a wonderful display of the current art/pop-up shop installation inside. I barely noticed the time.
Next, service. You’ll notice in the above photo the staff are wearing uniforms with ties, they’re all crisp and professional and they’re serious. Some people may construe this as unfriendly, or even rude. Well, have you looked at the operation they’re running here? There are 8 staff in the front, and looks like at least 5 in the kitchen, plus I see a roastery behind a glass wall, and there are 20 custom roasted beans and myriad combination of drinks for them that you can individually construct. On top of this, there is a full food menu for 3 meal changes, and a bar menu for later in the evening. The cafe is 2000 sq. ft.— positively huge for Tokyo standards. I can guaran-damn-tee you that there is no way to run a business at this quality, with this scale, without an incredibly disciplined and highly trained staff. They can’t be joking around with each customer given the turnover and the workload, nor can they be talking about their side hustle or latest art projects. It’s a full-commitment job. It makes sense why they are curt and efficient.
I’ll submit that if you’re expecting to be treated like the prince or princess of the kingdom, or the golden child returning home for Christmas, you want to be at a kiss-ass chain like Starbucks or a tiny mom-and-pop shop instead. This is a place trying to work at Michelin levels.
Next, the price. I couldn’t believe I was reading that people thought Ogawa is expensive. What universe are you living in? Let’s ignore the Michelin argument above, and the overhead and the service and just look at the competitiveness of the food and the coffee. The above American breakfast with a latte with single origin honey-processed Costa Rican beans cost 2100JPY. A garbage equivalent at Tully’s costs about 1400JPY for the same volume of food. A high quality competitor (Bill’s) 15 minutes away in Harajuku costs 3000JPY. Was the food here twice as good as Tully’s - absolutely without a doubt. Was it on par with Bill’s - yes. I’ll go one step further. Is there any American breakfast place in Japan that is better and costs less than this? I have been to a lot and haven’t seen one. If any of you are reading this from North America, 2100JPY is about $16USD, or $20CAN. You’ll know that is an absolute steal.
Let’s break-out just the coffee portion. Ogawa has a reputation for latte art. According to their web site they’ve trained a number of world champions and wrote a book on latte art. I mean look at that gryphon eagle thing they poured. Do you even need to drink it?? Of course, I’m going to drink it. But again, someone is complaining about this place. You don’t like it, fine. You’re extremely picky, fine. But for chrissakes at least acknowledge the level they’re working on here. Is there a finer latte art place in the whole damn world??? I don’t even care about latte art, but I’m certainly giving them credit for some beautiful work.
I mentioned the extensive bean list earlier. Obviously it would take many weeks of visits to try all of them. The bean I got was good, top tier. The price was lower than other equivalnet places. I’ll say that I was slightly disappointed with the temperature of the latte. Maybe it was done too quickly or sat just a bit too long, but it did take the flavour down a notch from world-class to only excellent. I certainly will try the same again before making any damning conclusions.
Now, after dispelling a lot of the supposed-negatives, I want to get to the really standout feature of Ogawa—the design. The design of the space quite literally left me with a tear in my eye and a sense of awe. There is both a church-like element to the space and also a well-worn homey feeling which is very very hard to balance. Some Scandinavian or more rural German places manage to do this, but it’s rare to get such depth as it is here. Ogawa’s space is like one of those odd photos where the longer you look at it the more remarkable it becomes. Or, in language, the more you write the same word on a piece of paper the less it resembles the word as you first thought it was.
Allow me to point out just two features of the above photo. The first is the wood tabletop that serves as the door to the coffee storage room (or cave as I like to identify it). I couldn’t see clearly, but the wear-impression above the door seems to suggest that this round wood can be rolled in front to close the room. Am I imagining or is it reality? Does it matter? Just the fact that someone chose to do something so unique for a door is remarkable to me as an ex-designer. It’s genius. It’s one-of-a-kind. It brings to mind the rock laid in front of the cave they banished Jesus to. This is the kind of interior design that wins awards and creates myths amongst designers.
Second, take a look at that aluminum/steel box on the round wall holding the liquor. Needless to say, making a round room in the middle of a square space and finishing it perfectly is pretty daring and challenging to begin with, but affixing a rectangle to it and making it “work” is a suicide mission. For anyone who has built any kind of geometric room like this or product with circles and curves and square buttons inset, you will know that it is the absolute hardest thing to pull off. I stared at this item for at least a few minutes and could neither tell whether the box was curved at the back, or inset or how it was hung, or how it maintained such sharp lines given the thickness of the materials and weight therein. Again, if you’re one of those people who is leaving a negative review here because the space isn’t “warm” like Starbucks, you’re missing the whole degree of achievement here. This is a le Corbusier masterpiece.
One other thing I want to stress with utmost importance. Did anyone notice how the staff are 60cm below the customer? Check the waistline on the lady in the above photo. I might be a freak to notice stuff like this but I literally burst out laughing while giving my order to the lady at the cash. I’m 188cm tall. She was 150cm. That’s 38cm below, plus I’m estimating another 60cm drop on the floor behind the cash. Almost 100cm from my eyeline down to her eyeline. It was like she was in a hole in the ground. Why is it like this? Just a quirk of the building geometry that they were forced to work with? I doubt it. Instead, the ring of seats around the bar puts the customers on a pedestal, like a runway catwalk, and allows the patrons seated to be at the same eye level as the staff, and those at the bar to be able to observe the handiwork of the staff with unimpeded view. In a broader sense, it is a courteous declination of the staff, a deference to the higher position of the customer. Japan, of course has many many rules of bowing, and of status. I can’t definitively judge exactly what or how this design element accomplishes it, but I am confident that it plays a complex role in that marriage of church/home feeling.
CONCLUSION
Needless to say, I am smitten with Ogawa. The food and coffee is very good. It’s affordable. It’s run like a top. It has breakfast, lunch, dinner, coffee and something for everyone, yet never falls prey to being watered down. It’s a monument built by someone who wants to make a mark, in a relatively sedate family-neighbourhood away from one of the mega stations. By all accounts it would fail in almost any other place in the world from the Google-rating curse alone. Yet, it thrives here and it thrives because of what Tokyo is. People care. It is a temple to the Japanese tapestry of life, from bottom to top how serious they take living and appreciating the fine points of everything. And, as a design exercise, it is an absolute tour-de-force, of which I would like to spend days, months, and years studying in person to fully appreciate the artistic value of the space.
Or, you could ignore everything I’m saying and be thankful that Starbucks and its 4.1 review is only a 10 minute walk away, with no line.
PRICE
$10-$50 USD
AVAILABILITY
〒154-0014 Tokyo, Setagaya City, Shinmachi, 3 Chome−23−8 桜新町 １階 2F エスカリエ
THE RATING
9/10 Absolute
9/10 Relative
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