French Bakery

Baguettes, shokupan and a shelf built for takeaway

Two loaves explain the shelf here: a French bread sold large or small, and a high-grade shokupan soft enough to eat plain. Between them sit English bread, sold either as a whole loaf or by the shoku, the Japanese unit for a squared-off block of bread, alongside square loaf bread and simple bread rolls, which is the practical core of a small, long-running bakery on the old Karuizawa shopping street in Kitasaku-gun. Nothing is plated and nothing is assembled to order. The counter is stacked for browsing, the room is bright and plain, and the whole operation is arranged around people carrying bread back out into the street.

Salt croissants and the flavoured breads

The range widens once the staples are covered. Salt croissants come in a four-piece pack, and the named breads run through cheese, raisin, walnut, Danish, chocolate and cinnamon apple. It is a retail catalogue rather than a chef’s sequence: familiar bread families first, then the sweeter and richer versions of the same idea.

Sets matter as much as single items. Bread assortments are sold ready made, and there is a shop owner’s recommended bread set for anyone who would rather be handed a selection than build one. Beyond the bread there is a short sweets and jam shelf and a line of original bags, which is as close as the shop comes to a gift counter.

Order a loaf, then add blueberry

Start with the French bread if you want the European side of the range, or English bread and square loaf bread if the purchase is everyday sliced bread. High-grade shokupan is the other loaf worth the trip, and the four-piece salt croissant pack is the easiest thing to eat on the walk.

Then go to the blueberry. Blueberry pie and wild blueberry jam, sold in small and large jars and in several jam sets, are the sweet counterweight to a counter otherwise given over to bread. One staple loaf, one richer bread or the croissant pack, and one blueberry item is the clearest version of this bakery. The shop owner’s recommended set covers the same ground when choosing piece by piece feels like too much work.