Popular Patisseries and Bakeries in Kobe

Apr 25, 2018

Popular Patisseries and Bakeries in Kobe

When you are in a new place, you always find yourself trying out the restaurants first. Unless you’re on a diet, you’d find it a must to sample the local delicacies and the popular eateries that you’ve researched on. The ones with the best reviews are the most favorable but the ones that’ll suit your palate will be prioritized. If you have a sweet tooth, you end up stopping for pastries, bread and dessert.

Japan is known for exquisite presentations of dessert and different sweet treats that are unique as well as delectable. The Japanese cheesecake and mochi are popular all over the globe so you know that anything made in Japan’s numerous patisseries and bakeries would satisfy your craving for food that is not only pretty to look at but would satisfy the rest of your senses especially your palate.

Cities like Kobe that welcome tourists at any given time of the year offer sumptuous packs and boxes of these delightful sweet treats that would keep you wanting more with every bite. These are only a few of those stores where you can get the sweet and savory bundles that are freshly baked and ready to be served.

Mama’s Selection Motomachi Cake Motomachi Honten

This affordable shop is known for its ever famous Zakuro, a fluffy sponge cake from egg yolks, stuffed with cream, and topped with strawberries and powdered sugar. With its reasonable prices and mouth watering treats, tourists keep coming back to this family-owned business that has been serving their clientele for over 70 years.

Naruto Taiyaki Honpo Hankyu Sannomiyaekimae

Their taiyaki is a fish shaped crispy cake filled with red bean or azuki paste. The name and the shape comes from the Japanese red seabream or Tai. If you’re not too fond of red beans, they also have a sweet potato version or you can opt for their equally famous vanilla ice cream in a waffle cone. They serve their traditional goodies fresh and right from the griddles. Walking around Kobe will surely be a lot lovelier with a taiyaki or vanilla ice cream on hand.

L’avenue

Although it’s not a sit down type of cake shop, they would be happy to set up a table and chairs for you so you can relax and enjoy their delicious chocolate cakes. The Choc’Frambo has delicate layers of berry, pistachio and chocolate and is one of the favorites of tourists and locals alike. The balance of flavors will leave a lasting memory in your palate making you want to keep coming back for more every time you visit Kobe. The rest of their sweet concoctions are colorful and artfully crafted just like the signature glossy chocolate cake and will surely beckon you to try them out, too.

Konigs Krone Honten

Since Kobe was at one time a haven for foreign settlers, most of the bakeries and dessert shops were inspired from what the west has brought to its shores. This confectionery and cake company whose name means “King’s crown” has expanded tremendously over the years and now has 31 locations in Japan with most of them in the Kansai region. One of these is in Kobe and not only famous for its pastries, cakes and bread but for its hotel that was actually established by the pastry brand and not the other way around. So while you’re in Kobe and decide to stay in Hotel Konigs Krone, you get to hit two birds with one stone. A relaxing stay with loads of sweets just a few floors away.

Isuzu Bakery Honten

After a bunch of cake and pastry shops in this list, let’s recognize one bakery that’s been around for 70 years and has four locations just within Kobe. It’s so popular that locals and tourists always drop by to purchase their daily bread fix when they are near any of their stores. The serve savory bread such as curry bread, the famous salt bread, the bucho’s salt and kelp bread, an extremely long sausage bread that you can ask them to slice for you or you can bring home bags of dry roasted butter rusk, which is actually French bread soaked in butter. With 7-8 new flavors every month on offer, everyone has something to look forward to when visiting.

Le Bihan Lumiereine, Sogo Kobe

Although it’s a bit tricky to locate, before the entrance of the Kobe Sogo Sannomiya Underground Shopping Center, the smell of buttery bread wafting in the air will beckon you to grab a croissant or two so you could relish its aromatic goodness. Recommendations range from their smoked cheese croissant to their French bread as most of their bread has French origins. The location is convenient for those who work around the area as they could just stop by and buy a bag of croissants before going to work and for tourists to sample their fare while they shop at the mall.

Sweets and Bakery Le Pan Kobe Kitano

Right within Kobe Harborland is another famous patisserie and bakery that is operated by a hotel, Hotel La Suite Kobe. They utilize homegrown ingredients as well from abroad as they focus on their products’ quality and that some ingredients should be locally produced to meet their standard of freshness. They use homemade natural yeast from Hyogo Prefecture and organic wheat that is millstone ground from France. All their baked goods are crafted within the hotel and has been quite popular among guests and tourists who decide to stop in to try their flowing supply of fresh bread.

Bakery Ça Marche

With a 100 different kinds of bread, you can never go wrong with your choices. You can try their savory, sweet, hard or soft bread and ideally sit by the relaxing terrace as you enjoy your order when its fresh from the oven. Their friendly staff will serve you bread as well as give you recommendations as to what is new in their baskets and trays and will gladly let you know the ingredients in English in case you ask. They are famous for their black tea cream bread that is filled distinctly with black tea leaves blended in the cream.

Kobe isn’t just known for their special variety of beef, the city is also famous for their traditional Japanese pastries and desserts as well as Western-inspired bread and cakes. History will tell us what happened and why the blend of the east and west helped this city thrive to what it gloriously is today. Don’t forget to sample as many sweet treats as you can when you come to visit.

By GoToVan (https://www.flickr.com/photos/gotovan/6798107211/) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons