Café Zingaro: Takashi Murakami’s Kissaten Inside Nakano Broadway

Hiro.SAO

Nakano Broadway is many things: a shopping complex, a subculture archive, a building that contains decades of accumulated specialist knowledge about manga, anime, vintage toys, and things that don’t fit neatly into any category. It is not, on first impression, the kind of place you’d expect to find a quietly remarkable café. Which is exactly why Café Zingaro works as well as it does.

It’s on the second floor, past the shops, through a door that doesn’t announce itself. The neon sign at the entrance gives the first indication that this is something different. Zingaro is produced by Kaikai Kiki — the company run by Takashi Murakami, one of the most internationally recognised Japanese artists of the past three decades. That association shapes everything about the space, without overwhelming it.

A Space That Holds Two Eras at Once

The interior is designed around a particular tension: the familiar comfort of a Showa-era kissaten set against Murakami’s unmistakable visual language. Vintage leather sofas, coloured glass lampshades casting soft light, and underfoot — a psychedelic carpet patterned with Murakami’s signature flower motif. The combination shouldn’t cohere as well as it does.

The tables are the detail that stays with you. Every one of them is a 1970s arcade game cabinet — Pac-Man, Donkey Kong — repurposed as café furniture. They’re functioning machines; the café provides coins if you want to play. As a piece of design thinking, it’s exact: objects that carry nostalgia, given a new context that makes them strange again.

The fit-out was handled by Hamakura-teki Shoten Seisakusho, the firm behind Ebisu Yokocho and other spaces that manage to feel lived-in from the first day. The result is a room that reads as retro and forward-looking simultaneously — a difficult effect to achieve, and here it’s done without effort showing.

What to Order

The menu is built around the same aesthetic logic as the space. Everything is considered, and several things are worth photographing before eating.

The ohana purin — a firm, old-fashioned custard pudding served in a silver dish, topped with a small flower-shaped cookie — is the right place to start. The caramel is properly bitter, the custard dense and smooth. It tastes like what it is: a classic done carefully, with a visual joke that lands.

The cream soda comes in vivid colours, with a flower-shaped scoop of ice cream floating in the glass. It melts into the soda in a way that’s genuinely pleasant to watch. This is a drink that takes the cream soda format seriously rather than ironically, which is the correct approach.

For something more substantial, the ohana pancakes are worth considering. The baked goods — muffins and other items available for takeaway — come from Tonari no Kaika-do, the confectionery brand run by Kaikai Kiki. They’re made with the same attention the space receives, and they’re good enough to justify the detour on their own.

How to Use the Space

Zingaro accommodates different kinds of visits without trying to be everything at once.

Alone, the counter is the right seat — facing the artwork, with enough quiet to actually look at things. It’s a good place to decompress after Broadway’s density, or to sit with something on your mind.

With someone, the game tables change the dynamic. The arcade format creates a pretext for conversation that doesn’t require effort — a useful thing when you want to spend time somewhere without the pressure of performing enjoyment.

As part of a longer Nakano visit, Zingaro pairs naturally with Broadway itself. Spend time in the building’s shops — which reward patience and a willingness to go slowly — then arrive here to sit down, order something cold, and let the afternoon settle. The contrast between Broadway’s accumulated energy and Zingaro’s contained quiet is part of what makes both places feel more distinct.

Café Zingaro is not a hidden gem in the way that phrase usually implies — it has a following, and it deserves one. But it remains genuinely easy to miss, which is appropriate for a place that asks something of its visitors: to notice what’s around them, to look at the table they’re sitting at, to understand that the carpet underfoot was designed by someone with a specific point of view. That kind of attention is what the space rewards.

Store Information
🚃 Access
Approx. 6-minute walk from Nakano Station North Exit (JR Chuo-Sobu Line / Tokyo Metro Tozai Line)
Nakano Broadway 2F, 5-52-15 Nakano, Nakano-ku, Tokyo
🕰️ Hours
12:00–19:00 (L.O. 18:30)
Closed
Tuesdays and Wednesdays (irregular closures — check official Instagram before visiting)
Instagram
@cafe_zingaro

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