Isetan is a great department store in Tokyo. They have a lot of selection for food on their basement floor and their brands for clothing range from mid-range to high end.

This department store also has a lot of great pop-up events throughout the year. For example, one of my favorite green tea brands Nodoka had a pop-up shop here for a few weeks even though the department store normally does not carry this brand.

One of Isetan’s biggest events is their annual Salon du Chocolat, which is a chocolate festival that started in Paris and is held in several cities around the world, including Tokyo. During the event, which normally takes place for two to three weeks, they would invite some of the best chocolatiers and pastry shops from around the world, especially France, and throughout Japan such as Es Koyama from Kobe and Hitotsune from Fukuoka.

During COVID they have had to be a little creative with holding this large scale event since they were not able to invite the chocolatiers and pastry chefs from outside of Japan, but this year’s 20th anniversary did not disappoint. They were able to hold the event by limiting the number of people who could go in at a time and requiring masks. This year I got to try several dishes, including a beautiful Colombian chocolate dessert from Tokyo’s one star Michelin restaurant called Le Sputnik and a chocolate tart from a special collaboration between Fukuoka’s Hitotsune and a microbrewery in Tokyo called Vertere.

This was my first time visiting Isetan for Salon du Chocolat since I am normally in New York and the timing of my visits to Japan had never coincided with this event, but I was glad that I was able to check it out even if there were less chefs from around the world.