Want Some Tea & Creme Brule With Your Lotion? Try L'Occitane Cafe In Shibuya

As I mentioned in the prevoius blog about ramen, I was in Shibuya a few weeks ago with some friends who were visiting.  My friend Ryan had printed out some travel information, including a list of things that one should check out while in Shibuya.  One of the things on the list was the L'Occitane Cafe. Perhaps you're thinking that L'Occitane is a store that sells body/skin care products and that you've never heard of L'Occitane having a restaurant or serving food?  Well, that's because the L'Occitane Cafe in Shibuya is their only cafe worldwide.  According to the travel guide's description, it's known for its convenient, spacious and relaxing atmosphere and for its "safe" dishes which are made with organic ingredients.  After walking around Shibuya, we had worked back up an appetite (well to be honest, even if I'm full, I can usually always make room for dessert) so we decided to see what all the hype was about.

L'Occitane Cafe occupies the 2nd and 3rd floors directly above the L'Occitane Store which is located at the famed Shibuya Crossing (across from the equally famous Starbucks).  It was definitely a little weird walking through a shop with skincare/beauty products in order to get to a cafe, but whatever, I went with it.  In order to access the stairs to the Cafe, you have to walk through the shop - but now that I'm thinking about it, perhaps that was intentional to get you to stop and look at their products, in which case it's brilliant (and in fact, as we were leaving, someone in our group ended up buying stuff from the shop). 

I will say, the atmosphere really was relaxing and quite spacious (well, for as far as Tokyo establishments go anyway), and it had a great view of the crossing. We had no trouble getting a table (and actually, the entire 3rd floor was empty) but this probably had something to do with the fact that it was during the week and not at a peak eating time. I was under the impression that they only served desserts, but they also serve breakfast (mostly sandwich type things) and lunch.  People at tables around us had ordered real food and everything I saw looked really good.  But we were there for dessert so I didn't bother to look at the food menu too carefully.  Now, the drink/dessert menu was a different story....

The special of the month was creme brule with fruits and ice cream (strawberry) and from the picture it looked delicious, so I knew that's what I was having.  Since I was already having an actual dessert, I decided to go with tea as my drink rather than one of the dessert drinks. No matter though, Ryan ordered the cocounut drink so I got to taste it.  I wouldn't go out of my way to order something coconut, but I have to say, that drink/dessert was really good.  It had coconut ice cream, ice and milk tea, and the combination was delicious (it got better as the ice melted into smaller chunks).  The creme brule was perfect and exactly how I like it; the presentation was impeccable and looked exactly as it did in the picture, which is something I have become accustomed to here in Japan (I'll probably be in for a rude awakening when we move).  I certainly wasn't blown away by this Cafe, but if you're in the area it's a cool spot to chill, grab some dessert and watch all the craziness down below at the crossing.