For seasoned shoppers, ‘Where shall we lunch?’ used to be a question fraught with existential angst, especially after a successful retail spree through a bold-faced named couturier.
This is no longer the case for Louis Vuitton loyalists dropping into the marque’s new four-storey flagship store in Osaka where in-house architects inserted a café and restaurant at the top of the billowing white façade – the latter stylishly mimicking the sails of traditional Higaki-Kaisen cargo ships.
Both venues are collaborations with Yosuke Suga, the celebrated Japanese chef overseeing a pair of serene spaces lined with terrazzo and furnished with, in the case of Le Café V, coloured discs that mimic the sea and a prow-shaped bar; and in the adjoining Sugalabo V restaurant – a bijou, moodily lit space wrapped around an open kitchen accessed through a speakeasy-type panel – with trompe l’oeil cube floors, dark panels, and high leather-swathed stools.
Le Café V, in particular, pairs its sunny room with an equally relaxed menu of Turzum and Kagoshima teas, satsuma juice, and an Earl Grey-infused gin and tonic to go with crab macaroni au gratin, and a crisp Croque Monsieur oozing with Raclette and Abondance. Or skip all that and head straight for the millefeuille scented with Madagascar vanilla.
ADDRESS
2-8-16 Shinsaibashi-suji
Chuo-ku
Osaka
-
A revived public space in Aberdeen is named Scotland’s building of the yearAberdeen's Union Terrace Gardens by Stallan-Brand Architecture + Design and LDA Design wins the 2025 Andrew Doolan Best Building in Scotland Award
-
Own an early John Lautner, perched in LA’s Echo Park hillsThe restored and updated Jules Salkin Residence by John Lautner is a unique piece of Californian design heritage, an early private house by the Frank Lloyd Wright acolyte that points to his future iconic status
-
20 things that positively delighted us in and around Design Miami this yearFrom covetable 20th-century masterpieces to a tower made from ceramic pickles, these were the works that stood out amid the blur of Art Week
-
Free flights across Japan? ANA just made it happenA new All Nippon Airways scheme in collaboration with the Japan National Tourism Organization aims to ease overtourism in major hubs by boosting regional travel
-
Is this Tokyo’s most alluring new hotel?In the world’s busiest capital, a new benchmark for serenity emerges 35 floors above ground. We checked into the Fairmont Tokyo
-
A cinematic members’ club rises in Japan’s forested hillsJoyce Wang Studio unveils The Magarigawa Club Clubhouse in Chiba
-
How Ichio Matsuzawa designed the almost-invisible bar defining Art Week Tokyo 2025During the 2025 edition of AWT, Wallpaper* met the Japanese architect to explore architecture as sensation, not structure
-
In Sou Fujimoto’s far-flung Not A Hotel villa, solitude feels almost planetaryAn underwater sauna, an infinity pool and a circular courtyard garden are just a few of the highlights at Not A Hotel’s latest outpost, on Japan’s Ishigaki Island
-
Check into a new pocket-sized Tokyo hotelSoil Nihonbashi Hotel brings greenery, warmth and a neighbourhood spirit to a quiet corner near Tokyo Central Station
-
Explore Hiroshima through the eyes of those who rebuilt itJapan’s architectural phoenix continues to rise. ‘The Hiroshima Architecture Exhibition 2025’ explores a legacy of memory and modernism across 23 architects and artist groups
-
Will the revamped Park Hyatt Tokyo keep its cinematic soul?As Park Hyatt Tokyo prepares to reopen after an extensive transformation, film fans wonder: will it still evoke Sofia Coppola’s dreamscape?
