Café Trois Chambres

Nire Blend, and the kissaten way of drinking it

The house order is the Nire Blend, a coffee served the way a kissaten serves coffee: as something to sit with rather than something to carry out. Lemon tea sits on the other side of the list, the familiar tea half of Japanese coffee-shop culture, and between the two the drinks tell you most of what the room is about.

Café Trois Chambres was ranked #99 on the Tabelog 100 list for 2022, an unusual placing for a shop this small and this deliberately old-fashioned.

A quiet second-floor room in Shimokitazawa

The room is the reason to come. Thirty-two seats, a counter, deep wood and low light, jazz kept at a level that lets people read, and a clientele that talks quietly or does not talk at all. It sits in Shimokitazawa, a district of Tokyo’s Setagaya ward known for small independent businesses and a young crowd, which makes the calm inside feel deliberate rather than accidental.

Smoking is allowed, which places it firmly in the older kissaten register rather than among the newer non-smoking cafés. That will settle the question for some visitors either way, and it is worth knowing before you climb the stairs.

Nostalgia is the register rather than the marketing. Nothing here has been restyled to look old; it simply is, and the jazz, the wood and the low light have the settled quality of a place that has kept the same habits for a long time. It works as a hideout in a busy district.

Order a drink and stay a while

Order the Nire Blend first. It is the coffee the room is built around, and taking it at the counter is the closest thing to using the café as it is meant to be used.

Lemon tea is the alternative if coffee is not the mood. Beyond that the food side is slight, so this is a drink-led visit: choose a cup, take a seat, and let the pace of the room do the rest. Café Trois Chambres works best when nothing is scheduled after it.