This article was always going to be about showcasing some of the best dining options in Chofu. In writing it we understood that we would be lucky enough to tuck into some fine food and drink, and we always knew that we could only scratch the surface of all that Chofu has to offer in this regard. You have to start somewhere though!

We hadn’t anticipated, however, the extent to which the characters and backgrounds of the owners and chefs we talked to in Chofu enhance the flavors of the dishes they serve and the dining experiences they offer. Perhaps these details are all too easily missed when we’re concentrated on getting fed. (The irony is, of course, that all of the restaurants and cafes detailed here have been offering take-out menus at least since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.)  

Let this then be an introduction of great food and welcoming atmospheres. And let it be a celebration of Chofu’s wonderful variety and diversity generated by the locals and the locales. 

We start in retro Kokuryo for coffee and cake. Stop for lunch in artist and community-inspired Sengawa. Finally, dinner is served with urban style and quiet sophistication around Chofu Station. 

Cafe Dan - Kokuryo

Customers have been coming to Cafe Dan since late 2019 to kick back with a steaming cup of coffee among the many plants inside this coffee shop, located a mere stone’s throw from Chofu’s Kokuryo Station.

“There are maybe around 50?” Cafe Dan owner Hitoshi Sasaki speculated as we tried to make a rough count of the potted plants decorating his coffee shop’s shelves, tables and countertops.

There are far more than 50. Maybe a hundred, which Sasaki and his daughter look after each day.

Whatever the exact number of plants though, Sasaki has conjured-up the trick of making Cafe Dan’s small space feel spacious and cozy at the same time, while still leaving room for enough plants to furnish a sizable greenhouse. 

“There are some chain coffee places which feel really cramped. I definitely didn’t want that kind of shop,” he explained, even if it meant a reduction in seating. 

The plants complement Cafe Dan’s interior with the bright greens a nice contrast to the richer tones of the wood out of which the walling, counter and table seating of the cafe has been crafted. Wall-to-ceiling windows at the shop front means plenty of sunlight for the plants, which sometimes dances off the leaves to a beautifully mellow effect. 

This is the kind of place you could really settle into with a good book. At the time of our visit, some customers were doing just that. 

Other of Cafe Dan’s customers remain more focused on the coffee. Sasaki and his team keep the menu simple - you won’t be having to bend your lips around the pronunciation of some faux-Italian concoction with a name containing more syllables than Cafe Dan has plants. 

Along with the Dan blend (“Because that’s what the customers started calling it.”), the menu at the time of visiting included straights from Brazil, Columbia and Guatemala, latte, and caffeine-free options. 

Cafe Dan can also brew-up a mug of Blue Mountain Coffee. The coffee, hand-picked somewhere in the mountains of Jamaica, has been a favorite among the Japanese for decades. Some of Cafe Dan’s customers come just for their fix. 

“They stay for less than 10 minutes. Just drink their coffee and leave,” Sasaki mused. 

Ice coffees, floats, cream sodas and juices were also on the drinks menu at the cafe at the time of visiting. Along with the hot coffees, many of the drinks are available to take out. 

You might want to take your time over some of the sweet treats handmade at Cafe Dan though, even if the temptation may be to gobble them down.  

We tucked into generous slices of chiffon cake and cheesecake, both served with fresh fruit - including strawberry, grape, orange, and banana. The chiffon cake was suitably fluffy, or “fuwa fuwa” to take the Japanese parlance. An indulgent dollop of cream was on hand to give it some extra body. 

The sweetness of the cheesecake was pleasantly subtle by design, allowing the cheese to come through a little more. A mature taste, if you will, in keeping with Sasaki’s description of his cheesecake as being “adult.”

The food menu at Cafe Dan is short, partly sweet, and may change on any given day. Coffee jelly and pizza toast rounded out the menu during our visit. Items were on display inside a delightfully retro case on the kitchen counter.

Sasaki is Chofu born and bred. Make that Kokuryo born and bred. Over our coffee and cake he told us of a childhood spent playing down by the banks of the Tama River, catching the silhouette of Mt. Fuji beyond the Tama Hills at dusk.  

He also talked about the future, for Cafe Dan at least. A future which could have cafe diners sinking back into their chairs of a late afternoon, with a glass of something red in their hand, and a live musician noodling away on an acoustic guitar. 

Sounds like bliss. 

For details on Cafe Dan and more great restaurants and cafes in Chofu

niwa-coya - Sengawa

In a quiet residential area a short walk southwest of Sengawa Station, the eye is immediately drawn to niwa-coya. This cafe-cum-gallery/store (and part-time flea market) almost seems to tumble out of its own entrance - a charming riot of flowers, veggies, and colorful bric-a-brac, or “zakka,” to use the Japanese term.

“I think we’ve become like the local store run by the neighborhood grandparents,” joked owner and cook Fumiyo Kasahara.  

Indeed, niwa-coya does have some of that exciting treasure-trove feel of your lovable nana's attic. The zakka and other curiosities in niwa-coya though, haven’t been collecting dust for decades. Rather, they are the rotating works of Kasahara’s artist connections and, during our visit, the warmly familiar items of a flea market - those shoes that never did quite fit and the spare parts of a kitchen appliance all dutifully and delightfully present.

niwa-coya’s gallery and store space merges into a cozy dining space which itself extends into an airy porch fronting the street. From the kitchen in the back Kasahara and her husband have been serving hungry diners, young and old, with carefully selected additive and chemical-free fare for around 14 years. 

“The concept is that the dishes should be something like that which a mother would feed to her family,” Kasahara, a mother herself, said of the menu at niwa-coya. 

“I don’t want my own family eating so many additives, so we want to be caring in the same kind of way that a mother is to her family.” 

Not that Kasahara is likely to bark stern orders at diners to eat up all their greens. On the contrary, there is a healthy dose of warm humor on the menu at niwa-coya. 

During our lunch visit we tucked into the daily brown-rice set menu. Presented on a rustic ozen tray, the main dish was a comforting lemon cream chicken (very tender), served with sides of boiled spinach and komatsuna (Japanese mustard spinach - “Now is the most delicious season for spinach.”), mashed pumpkin and sweet potato (“Something for the little ones.”), pickled purple cabbage, nukazuke pickles, and kinpira.

The gobo and carrot of the kinpira is normally mixed with sesame, but in-keeping with the western vibe of the lemon chicken, almonds were used instead. To delicious effect. 

Along with the brown rice and mixed grain rice, a bowl of miso soup dutifully rounded out the set. 

Kasahara joked that it must be strange for foreign diners to have miso soup and pickles served with their lemon chicken.

"Whatever is leftover from what we serve in the cafe becomes our dinner at home. Of course, I want the family to eat something nice too, and I thought this (menu) sounded good," she said with a giggle.

Still, this expat diner has been in Japan long enough not to be surprised by a serving of miso soup on pretty much any occasion. The absence of a raw egg actually caused a greater shock!

For dessert we made fast work of a lovely banana cake and cream, washed down with some fine coffee. Scones and chiffon cake were also on hand to satiate the sweet tooth. 

Other items on the menu at niwa-coya at the time of visiting included a homemade bacon BLT sandwich (with English-style bread from a local Sengawa bakery - Yes, please!), and a hearty vegetable dry curry. Blue cheese and honey toast was among the menu’s lighter dishes. The niwa-coya team has also been serving take-out bento boxes since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. 

For us, we’ll likely be ordering one of the lemon drinks (made with handmade lemon syrup) to wash down a BLT during our next visit to niwa-coya.

The name niwa-coya reflects the gallery, store and cafe’s roots.

During her student days Kasahara had worked at live houses which also served as spaces to hold galleries, exhibits and talks. They were “places which were a hub for culture.”

“At that time I realized the importance of “place.” Without this it’s difficult to be able to showcase people’s talent.”

So it was then that niwa-coya started out as gallery space and store to showcase art using a room in their renovated home together with a koya (small house) which they built in the niwa (garden). This is where niwa-coya, in its latest guise, remains today.

The cafe, food and drink (along with further renovations and live music) were to follow. At its heart though, niwa-coya appears to be what it set out to be - a hub of arts and community. And it seems to be a great fit for Sengawa. 

“The people here are amazing,” said Kasahara. “They have this real sense of a rural community.”

For details on niwa-coya and more great restaurants and cafes in Chofu

17-Unosette - Chofu Station area

There are a myriad of dining options among the streets that span out from Chofu Station. Just pick a direction and you’ll likely hit something to satisfy both appetite and palate. In short, you have to be something special to stand out in these parts. And for us, 17-unosette stood out.

Despite being relatively new to the Chofu dining scene - 17-unosette opened four years ago - owner / chef Keita Maekawa and his team serve-up wholesome, delicious Italian fare with the quiet confidence of a seasoned veteran. Maekawa does have the credentials though, including years spent in the kitchens of one of Japan’s most celebrated Italian restaurant brands.  

On the menu at unosette then is a selection of pasta, (meat) and pesce (fish) dishes that, in our experience, are served in generous portions at reasonable prices. And they taste superb. 

Maekawa makes a concerted effort to use ingredients from his native Iwate Prefecture, in Japan’s Tohoku region. 

“I have been working here all these years and I felt like I couldn't do anything when the earthquake hit,” he said of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated much of northeastern Japan in 2011.

“At the very least then, when I opened my own restaurant I wanted to use ingredients from Iwate and support the region that way.” 

Maekawa favors sumibiyaki “charcoal grilling” for his meats, and jyukusei “aged” fish in the restaurant’s pesce dishes. Fish and greens served at the restaurant will depend on the season, the harvest, and the available catch, according to the chef.

During our visit, and on the chef’s recommendation, we tucked into an oven-baked aged ishinage fish (something of a rarity in the markets but similar to a kue, or longtooth grouper) served in a rustic grill pan.  

Our fish was accompanied by seasonal vegetables including Iwate Prefecture shiitake and maitake mushrooms, and tsubomina - the sprout of a variety of leaf mustard. 

We also tucked into a generous plate of pasta pescatore - linguine topped with mixed seafood of scampi, squid, clams, baby scallops, and mussels, in a tangy tomato sauce. 

Not wanting to overdose on Italian, we picked a Spanish wine from unosette’s wine list as our warming glass of red to wash things down.

Of the pasta dishes, the peperoncino is particularly popular among unosette’s diners, according to Maekawa who uses hachimantai mushrooms - a brand of mushroom from Iwate Prefecture - in the Italian chilli-based dish.  

“As well as the mushrooms stir-fried with garlic and the pasta, I’m topping it with plenty of very finely-sliced raw mushrooms,” he said. 

“That way you can enjoy the texture and flavor of cooked mushrooms, as well as the aroma of fresh ones.”

We’re booking a table for our next visit already!

The vibe inside unosette is cozy and comfortable - you can see for yourself from outside courtesy of the large windows. Diners make their own contribution to the comfort levels, too.

“Many of the diners we serve here are really talkative. I’m not a fan of a really formal style of service, so this is comfortable for me, too,” Maekawa said.

As for our own contribution to the atmosphere, well, our attempts at photographing this diner to make it look like there was a dining partner sat opposite may have actually only served to make me look solo and engaged in a conversation with myself. You know what though, that’s fine. Unosette is warm and welcoming, and when food tastes this good you can let it do all the talking. 

If I were to come here solo though, I think I’d pick a counter seat and make friends with the impossibly cute cork-art characters that adorn the counter - the creations of the chef’s artist acquaintance. 

For details on 17-unosette and more great restaurants and cafes in Chofu

Ill Frogs - Chofu Station area

Is it fair to say that the foreigner in Tokyo (or in any of Japan’s cities) can often be left feeling overwhelmed by the sheer volume of shops, restaurants and other establishments that are often stacked on top of each other? Seen from the street, floor upon floor of who knows what?

Without the ease of being able to peer through windows, understand kanji, or make sense of borrowed English, this expat for one wonders how many treats they may have missed out on. How many great experiences left unexperienced for fear of what might await at the top of those stairs?

Burger shop Ill Frogs was a stark reminder of this. Up a staircase from a busy street. On the second floor. An absolute gem!

“I'm interested in hip hop so I wanted to express this but at the same time have a kind of cafe atmosphere that both elderly and young people can enjoy,” Ill Frogs owner and chef Shinichiro Murakami said.

Fans of hip hop, especially those with an affinity for the 90s, will be giddy with delight at the Ill Frogs playlist - coming out of speakers framed by artistic skateboard decks, a nod to another of Murakami’s interests. 

They’ll take pleasure, too, in picking out icons of the genre’s West Coast and East Coast scenes, appearing around the restaurant space as figures from Murakami’s apparently impressive home collection. 

Well-versed in hip hop and its stars or not though, everyone should delight in the relaxed, kind and friendly atmosphere that Murakami and his team have created here. Besides which, the real star of this show is the burgers. 

"I like burgers and I like bread," Murakami said with a charming simplicity which might belie the variety and flavors being served at Ill Frogs.

Among the 20 or so burgers on the menu at the time of visiting, we (just about) got our mouths around an apple and sour burger (with baked apple and sour cream - yes, it absolutely works) and a bacon cheese grilled pineapple burger. 

We were going to go with the peanut banana caramel burger (baked banana and peanut cream) but we were salivating too much over the contrast between burger and buns, and a refreshing slice of fruit.

"I think it's a really well-balanced dish. I actually think of it as a kind of health-food," Murakami said of the burger in general, with a giggle.

All joking aside though, they appear to take their burgers seriously at Ill Frogs. All the meat here is inspected and tendons removed by hand, while the mayonnaise and sauces are all handmade, too, according to Murakami. 

Each month Murakami and his team come up with a monthly special for the Ill Frogs menu. In March it was a citrus and blue cheese burger. The specials are a big deal for some people. One diner was said to have traveled all the way up from Nagoya, in central Japan, just to try one of the specials at Ill Frogs. 

"It's a bit like with ramen, there are fans of burgers who travel around seeking out monthly specials," Murakami explained. (If you’ve been in Japan long enough, you’ll likely understand how passionate people can get about their ramen here.)

Those with slightly less passion for the burger though, will find sandwiches, salads, and hot dogs among other dishes on the menu.

Ill Frogs is one of a number of independently run restaurants and other eateries that bring a lot of character to the streets northeast of Chofu Station. 

"I think there are lots of independent eateries in Chofu, compared to other parts of Tokyo,” Murakami said.  

“The shop owners have a good relationship with each other and we can recommend each other's stores to our customers. I think this is a great characteristic of the area.

For details on Ill Frogs and more great restaurants and cafes in Chofu

Find more great places to dine in Chofu with this map detailing cafes, restaurants, bars and more: