Why you should experience Bricolage Bread & Co. in Tokyo, Japan.
Bricolage Bread & Co. is a thoughtful bakery-cafe where Roppongi's cosmopolitan character, Japanese grain, French breadmaking and specialty coffee unite the work of Shinobu Namae, Ayumu Iwanaga and Kenji Kojima around bread baked from domestic wheat.
Set along Keyakizaka-dori near Roppongi-dori and just steps from Mori Art Museum, the bakery occupies the ground floor of Roppongi Keyakizaka Terrace, opening its bread counter and dining room toward the tree-lined southern edge of Roppongi Hills. Large country loaves sit beside croissants, pain au chocolat, focaccia and pastries, giving whole-grain doughs the same prominence as the laminated baking associated with a French boulangerie. Coffee extends the morning through the Scandinavian roasting culture that Kenji Kojima brought from Fuglen, and the kitchen turns the bakery's loaves into tartines and composed plates. The result is a Roppongi bakery where three accomplished culinary careers meet through Japanese agriculture, serious breadmaking and coffee conceived as part of the same meal.
What you should know about Bricolage Bread & Co.
Bricolage Bread & Co. is best known for opening on June 11, 2018 through a collaboration among L'Effervescence chef Shinobu Namae, Le Sucré-Coeur baker Ayumu Iwanaga and Fuglen coffee specialist Kenji Kojima. The relationship between Namae and Iwanaga began years earlier through relief work after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, when Namae prepared hamburgers in white sauce and Iwanaga supplied vivid beetroot bread for people living in temporary housing. Their eventual Roppongi project took two years to plan, placing bread at the center of a bakery, cafe and restaurant assembled from the distinct expertise of the three collaborators. Iwanaga brought a career that included training in Japan and Paris with Éric Kayser and Alain Ducasse before establishing Le Sucré-Coeur in Osaka; Namae reached the project after work at Michel Bras Toya Japon and Heston Blumenthal's The Fat Duck, followed by his leadership of L'Effervescence. Kojima completed the founding trio through Fuglen's coffee operation, connecting the bakery with a Norwegian coffee company whose Tokyo presence had already established a following in Tomigaya. The opening coincided with another major distinction for Namae: L'Effervescence received the inaugural Sustainable Restaurant Award from Asia's 50 Best Restaurants in 2018. Bricolage subsequently extended beyond Roppongi through a Shibuya Tokyu Food Show location, carrying a project born from the Namae-Iwanaga-Kojima partnership into a second major Tokyo commercial district.
Bricolage Bread gives the bakery's approach its clearest form through domestic grain and a deeply caramelized crust, with whole wheat used extensively to retain more of the kernel and its flavor. Nomin Pan draws together whole wheat from Imamura Flour Mill in Chiba and wheat from Hokkaido, producing a substantial loaf soft enough to support avocado toast layered with house sour cream, honey, dukkah and fresh lemon zest. Viennoiserie takes another route through croissants, pain au chocolat and escargot pastries, including pistachio and Japanese-flavored variations that broaden the counter beyond rustic loaves. Tartines convert the bread into lunch through seasonal produce and preparations developed from Namae's restaurant experience, preserving the loaf as the structural center of the plate. Coffee completes the progression through Kojima's contribution, giving the bakery a second specialty strong enough to make bread and coffee equal reasons to begin a morning in Roppongi.
How to fold Bricolage Bread & Co. into your trip.
Bricolage Bread & Co. works as the breakfast destination within a Roppongi route connecting contemporary public art, among Tokyo's principal private art museums and a design institution created by three major figures in modern Japanese creative culture.
Begin at Maman, Louise Bourgeois's immense spider installed at Roku Roku Plaza as part of Roppongi Hills' public-art program. Conceived in 1999, the sculpture rises more than nine meters and carries a sac of marble eggs beneath its body, connecting Bourgeois's spider series with her mother Joséphine, a mosaic restorer whom the artist associated with protection, patience and skilled work. Continue upstairs to Mori Art Museum, opened in October 2003 on the 53rd floor of Mori Tower under founding director David Elliott. Yoshio Taniguchi developed the museum interiors within Kohn Pedersen Fox's tower, establishing an institution devoted to contemporary art without a permanent collection and placing major international exhibitions high above the city. Conclude at 21_21 Design Sight, opened in March 2007 from a project initiated by Issey Miyake and designed by Tadao Ando, with Naoto Fukasawa and Taku Satoh joining Miyake as founding directors. Much of Ando's building descends below Tokyo Midtown Garden beneath a folded steel roof connected with Miyake's work on A-POC. Bricolage Bread & Co. closes the progression back on Keyakizaka-dori through another collaborative project, bringing Namae, Iwanaga and Kojima together around Japanese wheat, bread and coffee in 2018.
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