What it Takes to Build the Most Instagrammable Restaurant

What it Takes to Build the Most Instagrammable Restaurant
Harajuku Tokyo Cafe has become one of the most Instagrammable cafes in the country.

By Nusra , Editor

03 Jun 2022 | 8 min read

While studying for his Master's at the University of Warwick, UK, Gaurav Kanwar developed a huge liking for Japanese food which was easily available at market food stalls and campus restaurants. After returning to India to join the family business, he realized that Japanese street food and bakery were almost completely unexplored in our country and would be a very interesting food trend.

“I went to Japan to explore this idea further, walked the streets of Tokyo and Osaka to sample the street food, visited numerous bakeries and bread factories, and met up with Japanese chefs. I then decided to pursue my passion for food & my vision for bringing unique dining experiences to India, in the form of my first F&B venture, Harajuku Tokyo Cafe - inspired by Harajuku, a district in Tokyo, which is the center of Japan's most vibrant teenage cultures and vibrant cuisine,” he shared.

Excerpts from the interview:

How Harajuku Tokyo Café is bringing the authentic cuisine and culture of Japan to India?

We’ve brought unique flavors, live baking, and fluffy-light as air bread and desserts straight from the streets of Tokyo and Osaka — curated for the Indian audience. We have stuck to the authentic recipes of our Japanese partner chefs but have added on some exciting innovations like the five different toppings and sauces for the jiggly pancakes, and hand-pulled noodles in chili oil. We have perfected the cheesecake recipe after numerous trials with our Japanese chefs and they have created a chocolate cheesecake also, especially for India, this particular taste is not available anywhere else. It’s all about the complex flavors. Hence, getting the best raw materials is the most important aspect of our food. Most of our ingredients are sent here by our team from Japan to meet the authenticity of the homeland.

How Harajuku Tokyo Café is the perfect amalgamation of art, culture, and flavors of Japan?

In Tokyo, there is a kind of flow when it comes to food & fashion. This flow stems from Harajuku. It is the center of Japan's most vibrant teenage cultures and fashion styles. The focal point of Harajuku’s teenage culture is Takeshita Dori and its side streets which are lined by many trendy shops, fashion boutiques, and fast food outlets geared toward the trend-conscious teens. The cafe transports you to the streets of Tokyo. The quirky, contemporary feel of Japan’s pop culture is replicated in the design of the cafe in a lot of ways. The menu comprises popular Japanese street food like jiggly pancakes, corn dogs, teriyaki, and long fries. Our beautifully crafted desserts, cookies, and macarons reflect their “Kawaii culture” - which means cute in Japanese

How are you bringing the unexplored bakery culture of Japan to India? Do you see any competition in the local market?

While there have been many Pan Asian restaurants that have come up but the Japanese bakery and street food culture is still a very unexplored concept for Indians. The inspiration behind the menu is the Japanese bakeries and street food/fast food. Our teams here and in Japan are constantly innovating and will be introducing exciting new additions to the menu every month. As far as authentic Japanese bakery goes, we feel that our menu is quite different from anyone else in India.

What did it take to build the most Instagrammable restaurant in the country?

Harajuku Tokyo Cafe has become one of the most Instagrammable cafes in the country. We thought of the design very carefully, bringing in elements from contemporary Japanese culture. We conceptualized a whole design story so there will be a common thread across all our outlets, yet there will be an exciting new element in every outlet. Harajuku Tokyo Cafe comprises quirky spaces with a live baking station & boba tea counter. Influenced by Harajuku, the Tokyo neighborhood known for its celebration of Japanese pop culture and vibrant cuisine, the cafe has many fun elements like a claw machine, Manga comics, a Japanese street mural, a lively color palette, Instagram-worthy art installations, and moving LED panels which are so Japanese. The wall mural is a recreation of the actual street, with the famous Takeshita Gate, the neon signs, the famous Harajuku girls, and food carts. Even the cloud lights are meant to create the feeling of actually being on a street.

Our Ninja Spirit  A very prominent part of the design story is the mascot, the Ninja chef - which stands for creating a sense of harmony within oneself. The spirit of the Ninja embodies everything we practice - from our recipes to our customer service.

You launched the restaurant in the middle of the pandemic. What was the top learning?

Staffing has been a huge challenge, employees, if not taken care of will quickly switch or quit. Staff retention policies should be very strong. Other than that we should keep analyzing sales patterns regularly and set budgets and stock up accordingly. Overstocking of raw materials etc has resulted in major losses for a majority of the people in the industry

What is your expansion plan? ( no. of stores, new cities, etc)

Starting with a flagship outlet in Select Citywalk and a second outlet in Ambience Mall Gurgaon, we’re gearing up to open three more outlets in Delhi NCR this year and also planning our expansion to other metro cities by end of this year. We have also been getting a lot of queries for franchise options and we are exploring that route also, along with introducing smaller store formats for rapid expansion. Along with turning Harajuku Tokyo Cafe into a globally recognized Japanese QSR chain, I have plans to launch multiple innovative and diverse culinary concepts as part of my company and create a global F&B firm.

While studying for his Master's at the University of Warwick, UK, Gaurav Kanwar developed a huge liking for Japanese food which was easily available at market food stalls and campus restaurants. After returning to India to join the family business, he realized that Japanese street food and bakery were almost completely unexplored in our country and would be a very interesting food trend.

“I went to Japan to explore this idea further, walked the streets of Tokyo and Osaka to sample the street food, visited numerous bakeries and bread factories, and met up with Japanese chefs. I then decided to pursue my passion for food & my vision for bringing unique dining experiences to India, in the form of my first F&B venture, Harajuku Tokyo Cafe - inspired by Harajuku, a district in Tokyo, which is the center of Japan's most vibrant teenage cultures and vibrant cuisine,” he shared.

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