Ebisu to Hamamatsucho is closer than you would think. On foot it takes a while, but by bike it is right there. Riding back and forth a few times for the exercise is how I stumbled onto Boulangerie Franz.

A place like this

Something about it looked like more than met the eye, so I was curious, and when I looked closer they were selling bread.

Bread like this

The workshop

This place is seriously stylish too. When I looked it up, it turns out there is a French restaurant behind it and this is their bakery. There is a model-gorgeous woman baker working there full time, and when I asked, she said she bakes everything herself.

As for the prices… they are steep.

Well, you have to think of them as restaurant-dish prices. And it is only in a neighborhood like this that the business works at all.

Butter

Porcini bread

So I bought some.

It is a bread packed with seasonal porcini from Piedmont. What defines this shop is that they use great ingredients without holding back, but that does not necessarily mean the bread itself is beautifully executed. The bread here is not really about the bread; it feels more like they are making bread as one more porcini dish. As creative cooking it is fascinating, but judged by ordinary bread standards it is a bit hard to place. Then again, that is exactly this shop’s character and its strength.

Stollen

This stollen is a bit absurd too: no other ingredients at all, just raisins made from enormous, super-sweet Shine Muscat grapes. It is not hard, and it crumbles gently.

Raisin size

They are the size of a thumbnail. Shine Muscat raisins, so of course they taste ridiculously good. Everyone who tried it was blown away. I want to have this stollen again next time.

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