Vegan Lunch at SHIRO CAFE Jiyugaoka

I'm in a vegan phase right now!

I went to SHIRO CAFE Jiyugaoka, in Jiyugaoka, a neighborhood famous for sweets!

SHIRO CAFE is a cafe inside SHIRO, a brand of cosmetics and home care products.

No reservations at SHIRO CAFE Jiyugaoka

I figured it would be crowded and tried to book ahead, but they don't take reservations. The only option is to show up on the day and wait, so I headed straight there!

When I called, it was 12:40 on a rainy Saturday, and there were already four groups waiting.

Arriving at SHIRO CAFE Jiyugaoka

It was drizzling in Jiyugaoka but there were still plenty of people around. It was about a three-minute walk from the station!

SHIRO CAFE also seems to offer takeout and Uber Eats.

Inside, I found out there were seven groups waiting! But they told me it was a 90-minute seating limit and a table should open up in about 30 minutes, so I decided to wait in the shop and browse the cosmetics.

(They call you when it's your turn, so waiting outside is also an option.)

True to the brand name SHIRO ("white"), the interior and the packaging are all refreshingly white.

This Jiyugaoka shop is the flagship store, with every SHIRO product, including cosmetics and home care items like laundry detergent and fabric softener.

There's a sales floor in the basement too, with a bath display and fluffy waffle-weave towels.

There were also health foods such as soy sauce, canned tuna and flaxseed oil.

I slipped past the impulse-buy traps and went back to the seats for waiting guests, where they served me water!
They also gave me a sample card spritzed with a daphne perfume.
It's nice when a long wait comes with little touches like these to keep you from getting bored!

Vegan lunch at SHIRO CAFE

After a 40-minute wait, it was finally our turn!
It was maybe getting a bit close to evening, lol, but at last, lunchtime.

It's hard to tell from the photo, but SHIRO CAFE is at the back of the first floor.

Here's the menu. The photos are big and colorful, so it's super easy to understand.

SHIRO CAFE's theme is "vegan food you'll want to eat every day."
True to that, the menu has familiar dishes like pasta and curry.

And everything on the SHIRO menu is vegan.

The menu explains that because SHIRO's cosmetics and home care products use natural ingredients such as gagome kelp, shea butter and sake lees, the cafe menu is likewise gentle on the body, which naturally led to vegan food.

First I ordered the vegan meat doria with calendula, ¥1,500.

The small yellow flowers are calendula, an edible flower. It's piled high with vegetables like cauliflower and bell pepper!
The bechamel sauce with a cumin aroma is delicious. The meat sauce is vegan, made with freeze-dried tofu and mushrooms.
The rice might be germinated brown rice? It had a popping texture.

And here are the hot ginger lemonade, ¥750, and the baked cheese curry with colorful vegetables, ¥1,500.

The hot ginger lemonade warms you up wonderfully. I'd especially recommend it on a rainy day. I want to recreate it at home.

Baked cheese curry... but isn't cheese dairy? No, of course it's vegan.
It has even more vegetables piled up than the doria! I was happy to see my favorite, deep-fried eggplant.
The curry has a pretty strong kick.

Combined with the flavor of the vegan cheese made from sake lees, it gave me a different kind of deliciousness.

I had wanted to finish with pancakes for dessert, but I was fuller than expected, so I'll come back another time and work my way through the whole menu, lol.

Bonus

The restroom was simple, spacious and very clean. They have SHIRO hand soap you can try. (It had a lovely soapy scent!)

So that was SHIRO CAFE.
It's a great place in Jiyugaoka for stylish cosmetics and for trying vegan food for the first time.
Do stop by when you're out!

SHIRO CAFE Jiyugaoka

SHIRO CAFE Jiyugaoka
1F/B1, 2-9-14 Jiyugaoka, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 152-0035
11:00-20:00
03-5701-9146