ELLE opens its first café, inside JR East's Takanawa Gateway City development
La Maison Hospitalité has opened ELLE café TAKANAWA, the fashion magazine's first café anywhere, on the second floor of a residential building inside JR East's still-filling-in Takanawa Gateway City development.
La Maison Hospitalité opened ELLE café TAKANAWA on September 8, the first café to carry the ELLE name anywhere, on the second floor of Takanawa Gateway City Residence in Tokyo's Minato Ward, the company announced. It operates under licence from Lagardère Active Enterprises Japan, which holds the rights to the ELLE and ELLE Decoration brands.
The signature dish is the 'Croger', a croissant-and-hamburger hybrid priced ¥1,500–2,100, alongside tartines, cassecroûtes and salads that the company frames under a 'Neo Wellness' concept. Wine and champagne are served by the glass from ¥1,540. The café seats 34, including four counter seats, and is open daily from 9am to 9pm, with food orders taken until 8pm.
Takanawa Gateway City is JR East's large-scale redevelopment of former railway yards around Takanawa Gateway Station — the kind of long-horizon project floortok watches closely, precisely because its retail mix is still being decided tenant by tenant. Putting a licensed magazine's first café on a residential building's second floor, rather than a ground-floor retail podium, is a bet that the ELLE name can pull its own customers before the district fills in around it, not that it needs passing footfall to survive.