Daimaru Umeda's autumn food fair leans on a contest-winning melon bread and this spring's new tenants
Daimaru Umeda's monthlong autumn food fair is built around a contest-winning melon bread — and, pointedly, the two tenants it opened on the same basement floor only this spring, a faster vote of confidence than most new shops get.
Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores said its Daimaru Umeda store is running a month-long Autumn Harvest Festival on its basement food floor from October 1 to 31, built around seasonal chestnut and sweet-potato sweets and a contest-winning melon bread, according to a release dated October 5.
The featured item, Backhaus Irie's Crown Mélonier (¥432), won the top prize at the 13th Crown Melon Cream Pan Contest in April and is sold in limited quantities through October 15, filled with Crown Melon custard, mascarpone cream and an exotic-fruit jam of banana, mango and passion fruit, the company said. Two tenants that opened on the floor only this spring are anchoring the fair alongside it: Starbucks Reserve is selling a chestnut cornetto for dipping in lattes from September 9 to November 1, and Teco na Bagel, which opened in April, is adding a chestnut Mont Blanc cream bagel (¥390) and new Maple Bacon and purple-sweet-potato-and-pumpkin flavours (¥420 each). Longer-running tenants including CHIHIRO the FINANCIER, &Earl Grey and Tsuruya Yoshinobu are also taking part, Daimaru said.
A basement food fair like this is routine programming, but the choice of anchors is a tell: Daimaru Umeda is already leaning on two shops it opened on the floor only months ago to help carry a flagship seasonal event, rather than waiting for them to prove themselves on an ordinary week. For one of Osaka's busiest department-store food floors, that is a faster vote of confidence in this spring's renewal than most new tenants get — and a read on which additions the store already trusts to pull a crowd on their own.