Visiting the Endless Bakeries of Tsukuba

45 minutes from Akihabara Station is Tsukuba, the self-proclaimed Science City in Ibaraki with its iconic twin-peak mountain. The area is a great place to go hiking, visit its many gardens, or visit the Ring Ring Road, a cycling path from Lake Kasumigaura to Mount Tsukuba.

Among all these outdoorsy activities and its scientific reputation, these days, thanks to a lot of TV coverage, many people also know about its delicious bakeries. So today, I visited five of Tsukuba's bakeries, trying two items from each, to see what all the fuss was about.

Couronne Tsukuba

The autumn day was off to a bit of a rainy start as I made my way to my first stop: Couronne. This bakery started in 1994 and has a few branches in Chiba and Tochigi, but has the most in Ibaraki. I had tried their croque monsieur once in Tsuchiura on a cycling trip and thoroughly enjoyed it, so I was intrigued to try out some of their other options.

There are in fact three branches of Couronne in Tsukuba alone, but this is the only one called Couronne Tsukuba. Outside, there are two car parks and a small outdoor seating area, as well as a few boards outside with information about the shop and this month's recommendations.

The inside has a cute log cabin style about it, with bakers and sandwich makers running around putting out new items when I visited at 9:30am. They had a mix of distinctly French items and Japanese fusion items, and even some small bread snacks for dogs.

As I was looking around, a baker came out with freshly made pains au chocolat, so I couldn't help myself and took one of those. As my second item, I got something I've never seen before, called a "mohn plunder" (モンプレンダー) which had poppy seeds and walnut. The pain au chocolat was crisp, though I would have liked to see more chocolate, while the poppy seed item felt like something between a cake and a pastry, and had a delightful autumnal nutty sweetness to it.

Mühle

Moving from French to German inspired, Mühle is a much smaller bakery that started at a very similar time, in 1995.

Everything here has a much more homemade feel, with small handwritten signs indicating when things are fresh out of the oven. Although there wasn't as much to explore here, I enjoyed perusing the fusion items like their tuna and cheese bread, and felt at ease in the no-frills establishment.

In reviews, a lot of people had mentioned both the baguette and the curry pan, so I bought one of each, picking up the half-sized baguette instead of the full-sized.

The baguette was very crunchy, even a few hours later, unlike the soft "french bread" you often see in Japanese supermarkets. It had the slightly yeasty, oven-roasted flavor that I'm used to having in Europe. The curry pan, on the other hand, lived up to its reputation, as the curry itself was delicious with a meaty and mildly peppery flavor. A lovely option as part of lunch.

Penny Lane

The next spot on my list is perhaps the most famous bakery of Tsukuba, Penny Lane. I decided to leave this to visit around lunch time, as it is one of the few bakeries with a dedicated indoor eat-in space.

Penny Lane is talked about so much that I was not sure it would live up to the hype, but once I arrived, I understood. Outside, by the Aeon Mall parking lot, is a garden dotted with benches and small statues. There are three entrances: the restaurant to the left, the bakery in the center, and a dog café to the right.

I entered through the central door to find a huge space filled with all sorts of bread and pastries. At the front was a board outlining which items would come out at what time slot. I bought two things, a "tartine campagne" and their famed "blueberry bread."

I took the blueberry bread to go, and the tartine campagne to eat in. I was given a basket and toasted the bread in their mini toaster oven, then made my way through to the restaurant. There, I had to write my name down to be called, and was worried my toast would go cold, but at 11:30, I was seated quickly. I had to order a drink to be able to eat in, and got a marron milk tea. The theme of the restaurant is the Beatles, hence the name Penny Lane, and Beatles music was playing the entire time, with tasteful Beatles decorations all around.

The pain de campagne the tartine was made with was delicious, with a crisp crust and soft center, and flavorful ham and cheese toasted on top. When I got home, I had the blueberry bread, which had a mild sweetness and didn't need anything on it, as it was like blueberry jam was baked right in. I'll definitely be coming back here!

A Break at Doho Park

On the way from Penny Lane to my next spot, I decided to stop for a short break at Doho Park. If the weather were a bit nicer, this would be a lovely spot to have a picnic with my bakery haul. The park has a big beautiful pond, benches, and a large space to explore and walk off some of those carbs, too.

Bäckerei Brotzeit

Heading north of Tsukuba Station, my next spot was the German-inspired Bäckerei Brotzeit. The head baker studied in Germany before opening the bakery just over ten years ago.

With a dusting of autumn leaves in front of its quirky entrance lettering, even from the outside the bakery seems modern and welcoming.

Inside, the small but stylish bakery had a selection of crunchy, seeded, and sour bread, with German specialties I'd never heard of before like Kürbiskernbrot and Weizenbrot. The staff told me about the sour flavors and recommended a few things to try.

I chose a fig jam sandwich made with Brötchen-blanko and a seeded "3 Saatenbrötchen." The Brötchen-blanko sandwich was a bit like a hard ciabatta, and went well with the simple jam filling. The seeded bread was dense and nutty with a welcome softer center, which would make a good, filling sandwich.

Kurabiyori

After visiting so many European style bakeries, I wanted to visit one that was a bit more Japanese. That brought me to Kurabiyori.

This bakery is part of a larger complex with an Italian restaurant and a warabi mochi store, all centered around a beautiful Japanese garden. The bakery has both outdoor seating and a cozy indoor seating area upstairs, with a warm wooden atmosphere and friendly staff.

They had a small but interesting selection of baked goods, and while everything was distinctly Japanese in its creative fillings and toppings, there was clearly some knowledge of western bread-making too, as I saw, for the first time in my life in Japan, tiger bread.

There was quite a variety, from berry cheese tarts to anpan (a sweet roll with red bean paste). Of course, I had to take this rare opportunity to buy the tiger bread roll, which was filled with camembert. I had wanted to get their popular melon pan, but they were sold out, so I bought something that seemed quite Japanese, a "Renkon Tuna Oyaki". Oyaki is a type of buckwheat dumpling, while renkon is lotus root. Although the camembert was a bit more like cream cheese, the tiger bread was tasty with a nice crunch, and the tuna oyaki had that signature Japanese tuna flavor that comes through in tuna onigiri, and the thin dough made the filling the spotlight.

After visiting all of these bakeries, I can safely say that Tsukuba is a great place to get your fill of bread and pastries, in all sorts of styles. Having been to a number of bakeries in Japan myself, I was sceptical that these would be any different, but I was pleasantly surprised by the distinct atmosphere and baking styles that each place had.

Getting There and Around

The closest station is Tsukuba Station, which is the terminal for the Tsukuba Express that runs between Tsukuba and Akihabara (45 minutes on the rapid train, multiple trains per hour, 1,210 yen one way).

Each of these bakeries are around 2-10 kilometers apart, so the best way to visit all of them is by car or taxi. Around the station there are a number of car rental spots.