Keio Department Store hands a Shinjuku floor to a family-format Italian chain
VANSAN, the family-format Italian chain run by Dining Innovation's VANSAN Corporation, opened on Keio Department Store Shinjuku's eighth floor on 14 September — a live example of Tokyo's biggest stores reworking upper-floor dining around families rather than just tourists or office workers.
VANSAN Corporation, part of Dining Innovation, opened an Italian Kitchen VANSAN restaurant on the eighth floor of Keio Department Store Shinjuku on 14 September, the company said. The 75-seat restaurant, run under franchise by Kitayuu Shoji, is VANSAN's 92nd location nationwide and only its second inside a department store, open from 11am to 10pm.
The store's signature is a dinner-only "topping-unlimited" pasta — servers keep adding toppings until the customer calls a stop — offered in three versions priced between roughly ¥1,860 and ¥2,080, plus a limited autumn menu built around black truffle. VANSAN said the Shinjuku location includes a dedicated kids' space, stroller access and a separate children's menu, features aimed squarely at family groups rather than solo diners or after-work drinkers.
A family-format Italian chain taking a full floor at one of Shinjuku's flagship department stores says something about who these stores are now trying to pull in: a dinner-table format built for children and pushchairs is a different bet from the tourist-facing food halls and standing bars that have dominated recent department-store dining refits, and one Keio's nearby rivals are likely to test for themselves.