7 best designer brand restaurants and cafés in Tokyo

On the tenth floor of Chanel’s flagship boutique in Ginza is a restaurant that is every bit as fresh, elegant and sophisticated as the French fashion house itself, with a cream-coloured interior designed by Peter Marino. A collaboration between Chanel and Ducasse Paris, Beige has been dishing up contemporary French cuisine with Japanese flavours since 2004.

The restaurant is currently overseen by executive chef Kei Kojima and holds two Michelin stars. The lunch course, priced at ¥12,000 per person, comes with an amuse bouche, two entrees and a dessert, with the option of swapping the second entree for two glasses of wine selected by the sommelier.

Dinner is priced upwards of ¥20,000 per person, but think of it this way: you could eat here 100 times before the bill exceeds the price of some Chanel purses.

Combining modern Italian cuisine with Gucci’s eclectic design, Massimo Bottura's collaboration with the luxury design house occupies the fourth floor of the brand’s second flagship store on Namiki-dori in Ginza. This Tokyo outpost is the third of its kind in the world, with the original Gucci Osteria da Massimo Bottura located in Gucci’s birthplace of Florence, Italy, followed by a second restaurant in Beverly Hills, California. Both restaurants have been awarded a Michelin star each, and this Tokyo outpost has just received its first star in the 2023 Michelin Guide for Tokyo.

Heading the Tokyo restaurant is executive chef Antonio Iacoviello, who worked at the restaurants of Alain Ducasse and René Redzepi before joining Osteria Francescana. Together with sous-chef Hayao Watanabe, Iacoviello offers a tasting course of vibrant Italian dishes peppered with a modern, Japan-inspired twist

Champagne, caviar and candlelit dinners? Yes, please. On top of its renowned restaurant, Bulgari’s Ginza flagship store boasts a Dom Perignon Champagne terrace as well as a bar for cocktails and afternoon tea to suit any hour of the day. Luca Fantin’s Italian restaurant, however, gets more attention than even the fine jewellery and accessories adorning the shop’s display cases.

The restaurant has proudly held a Michelin star since 2011 and even made the list of Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants in 2020, coming in at No 17. There's no lunch service, but for dinner there's a tasting menu at ¥26,950 with wine pairing available for ¥25,850.

It's impossible to miss the Emporio Armani Caffè when walking along Aoyama-dori. With its floor-ceiling windows and bright red logo, this ground-floor venue catches the attention of just about every shopper making their way through Omotesando. The Armani Ristorante, on the other hand, is located on the top floor of the Armani building in Ginza and is inconspicuous to those who aren’t actively looking for it. 

While the menu in the Omotesando location is limited to café drinks like shakeratos and light bites, the Ginza restaurant covers all the bases with different menus for lunch, dinner and afternoon tea as well as aperitivos. 

There are a la carte options and pre-fixe courses for both lunch and dinner (lunch from ¥7,500, dinner from ¥14,000), featuring modern Italian dishes stewed beef cheek with polenta and tortello piacentino (handmade pasta stuffed with ricottta) that change seasonally. The afternoon tea (weekdays ¥6,000, weekends ¥7,000) has a combination of sweet and savoury bites like sandwiches, tiramisu and mini fruit tarts. If you don’t have a sweet tooth, consider coming in the early evening for a pre-dinner aperitivo box ( ¥12,000) for a selection of hot snacks to whet your appetite.

Cashmere sweaters and coffee go hand in hand, so it makes sense that Ralph Lauren’s Omotesando flagship store should feature a New York-style café. Sitting here, it’s easy to feel like you’re brunching somewhere in Manhattan instead of the centre of Tokyo, what with the old-school ivy green interior and generous American-sized portions. 

Treat yourself to a slice of carrot cake with cream cheese icing or, if you’re feeling indulgent, a good old fashioned brownie (¥660) topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream (¥1,045). As for the coffee, look out for barista specialities like cortado and flat white that you won’t find on the menu in most typical Japanese coffee shops. You'll also find branches of Ralph's at the Ralph Lauren stores in Ginza and Shinjuku. 

Dior’s previous café produced by Pierre Hermé sadly closed in spring of 2020, only to reopen as the Café Dior by Ladurée a few months later. Here, you can re-create that iconic montage from Sophia Coppola’s ‘Marie Antoinete’ by combining the hottest styles in French fashion with pastel coloured sweets.

The afternoon tea sets start at an eye-watering ¥18,000, but the a la carte options come with more palatable price tags. Get a moelleux au chocolat (molten chocolate cake) for ¥2,000 or a selection of macarons for ¥3,300, which includes flavours like bergamot and rose.

Louis Vuitton’s second flagship store in Tokyo on Namiki-dori draws plenty of visitors who simply want to ogle at the building’s iridescent exterior. But there’s even more to see inside the seven-storey structure, which reopened after a three-year renovation with the addition of a Louis Vuitton café (only the second in the world after its debut in Osaka).

Located on the top floor of the building, Le Café V offers a selection of seasonal sweet treats and savoury bites like Mont Blanc chestnut cakes (offered in autumn) and creamy crab croquettes (a wintertime speciality). Furnished with chairs and tables from the Louis Vuitton Objet Nomad Collection, the dining space, designed by Jun Aoki and Peter Marino, has a fresh yet classic feel to it.