Usagiya CAFE

Dorayaki from a house founded in 1913

The sweets counter is where this café's identity sits. Usagiya CAFE belongs to Usagiya, the Ueno wagashi house founded in 1913, and dorayaki is the item the name carries; here it is served as something to sit down with rather than to carry away in a paper bag. Kakigori, Japanese shaved ice, is the other order, and the one that makes the warm months the busiest.

Nothing about it is a new concept. The café is an extension of a business that has been making Japanese sweets in the same neighbourhood for more than a century.

A small, quiet room beside the sweet shop

The café sits next to the century-old wagashi shop in Ueno and is deliberately small: simple table seating, custom plates and cups made for the house, and a calm atmosphere that reads as old Tokyo rather than as a modern coffee bar. It is a room for sitting with a sweet and a drink, not for working through a laptop afternoon.

Because it is both small and well known, lines form at busy times.

Ranked on the Tabelog 100

Usagiya CAFE was placed fifth on the Tabelog 100 for 2025, which puts a small sweets café among the most highly regarded places to eat in Japan. Order the dorayaki first, since it is the sweet the house is built on, then the kakigori if the weather suits it.