6 best cafés in Tokyo for Japanese mochi desserts

Gekko Mochi in Uguisudani is one of the few cafés in Tokyo where you can fill up on mochi as a meal. While the dishes may be simple, they boast hearty slabs of mochi made with akarimochi, a type of rice from Aomori prefecture that has umami and sweet flavours. The rice is pounded over 400 times by hand to give it a smooth and stretchy consistency, and it’s made fresh daily. We recommend going for the donburimochi (¥2,400), which comes with three mochi balls inside a bowl with soy sauce glaze. You’ll get condiments on the side including seaweed, grated daikon radish and your choice of wasabi or irigoma (grated sesame seeds) to dress your dish. The set even comes with an additional mochi that you can choose from three flavours — a grilled mochi with soy sauce or kinako (roasted soybean powder), or a sweet mochi that’s usually filled with a seasonal sweet bean paste. Note that you can only order set meals at Gekko Mochi, so come here with an empty stomach. But if you are still feeling hungry, you can always ask for more mochi at an additional cost. The shop also specialises in tea, so you’ll have the opportunity to try its special hojicha tea. Otherwise, swap that out for buckwheat tea for ¥100 or a non-caffeinated millet tea for ¥200.