Wandering past shops throughout Japan displaying rows of Willy Wonka-style cream cakes, it can be hard not to feel left out if you’re vegan or have a dairy or wheat allergy. Within the last few years, however, the vegan bakery landscape has changed. Tokyo has woken up, and now has its own vegan bakery scene, as you can see from the shops below. Vegan cakes, vegan bread and vegan pastries — this list has it all.
The Best Vegan Loaded Breads: Universal Bakes and Cafe
I remember when Universal Bakes first opened in May 2020. It was during the height of COVID-19, so trips away to see friends were difficult. We happened to live nearby and went there nearly every single day, spending way too much. During that period, we gorged ourselves on vegan croissants and tried all the different flavors of savory bread that the shop served up.
Run by the owners of Alaska Zwei, a vegan café in Nakameguro, Universal Bakes is a special bakery. Everything, from the coconut muffins and the pizza bread to the raspberry tart and the French toast, is vegan.
Universal Bakes serves many classic Japanese bread varieties, including some amazing anpan: the Japanese snack of adzuki bean paste inside a hard bread bun. Then there’s the peanut butter bread, which is a sandwich of sugary, creamy peanut cream, as well as the vegan shokupan, also known as Japanese milk bread. Everything is worth a try, but I particularly love the loaded breads. Topped with crumbling pastry bits, seasonal fruits or vegetables, every time is different. It’s like a new flavor explosion. You can take them home to toast or eat there and then with a coffee or a seasonal beverage.
The Best Vegan Cakes: Marbre Vegan
You’ve come all the way to Japan, and you would like the whole Japanese experience. Wandering around places like Ginza, Daikanyama and even Shibuya, you’ll pass shops with beautiful, delicate cakes displayed in the windows, in glass cases. The cakes don’t even look real, for the most part, as they are so delicately decorated. Always cream, you think, resigning yourself to a lifetime of window shopping, never buying. But that is where Marbre Vegan comes in. The tiny store, located opposite the gorgeous Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, stocks the cakes you always wanted but never thought you’d be able to try.
The shop’s gorgeous strawberry sponge cake, with small strawberries in the middle and a whole one on the top, is its most popular creation. As the confection is loved by vegans and non-vegans alike, be prepared to join long lines of Japanese and non-Japanese people for a slice of this pie. You can eat in for the full Japanese-French teatime experience, or take out and eat in the park, which is just a hop and a skip away.
The cakes at Marbre Vegan are sweet but not overly so, unlike some similar stores. Most of the café’s items are even gluten-free and clearly labeled, so any celiacs among you can rest easy. Enjoy the drinks, which change seasonally, as well as the cakes and vegan sandwiches. Perfect for a picnic!
The Best Vegan Pastries: Te Cor Gentil
Te Cor Gentil is a tiny French-inspired bakery that makes excellent croissants and Japanese bread. Head to its little shop in Azabu-Juban to gorge yourself on pastries and sandwiches that taste like they contain real meat. Its ever-changing selection includes seasonal varieties of the store’s popular croissants, such as lemon tea flavor for summer, and croissants filled with sweet pistachio cream.
The plain croissants are delectably buttery without the butter, and will flake in your mouth. Te Cor Gentil also has its own take on melon pan — melon bread — as well as a delicious version of Japanese salt bread, peppered with blue seaweed. It’s the sort of vegan bakery that’ll have you double-checking with staff that it really is vegan.
There is only enough space for two people (or three very good friends) to sit on the bench inside, and four people outside. The shop also serves seasonal drinks.
The Best Vegan Melon Pan and Vegan Shokupan: Morethan Bakery
Morethan Bakery, a small bakery located on the first floor of The Knot Tokyo Shinjuku hotel, started as a vegan-only store. Now, even though its vegan-only operation is limited to Sundays, it still has ample selections on other days of the week.
The bakery serves sugary vegan donuts, blueberry muffins with fruity jam, vegan fruit cream sandwiches and a range of classic Japanese bread. Its shokupan is made with enough sugar to give it that sweet shokupan taste, and kneaded vigorously to ensure a mochi-mochi texture. Worth mentioning is the bakery’s take on the classic melon pan. Morethan’s melon bread has the desired cracking coating, which usually contains milk, but not here. It is crumbly and sweet, and the bread underneath it is light, to complement the melon coating perfectly. Melon pan, just to clarify, does not contain melon or taste like it. Actually, it’s a soft bread covered in a sugary coating that resembles the skin of a cartoon melon.
Visitors to Morethan can sit in the hotel lobby or in its lounge to eat the bread. There is access to Wi-Fi for anyone who wants to do a bit of remote work. Plugs are also available.
