Nikko Coffee — Restaurant in Nikko

Summary: If you are looking for good coffee this is not it. If you are looking for good food, check other reviews because it seems they do well at that, but I cannot comment.

Detail: Coffee 2/5 If the coffee is good I can overlook the flaws. However, the single origin Columbia that I ordered was over-roasted and the brew was over-extracted. The resulting cup was bland, bitter, and devoid of flavour.

Design & Aesthetics 5/5 Very stylish restored building, I absolutely loved the wood structure and layout of the cafe. There's a lot of potential for this location.

Service 2/5 As many others have pointed out, they have chosen to run a peculiar reservation system and you are likely to have to wait 1 hour for a seat. I opted for take out. When I walked in there were 4 empty tables with a total of 18 empty seats between them. In the time I was waiting, only 4 seats were filled. It took 15 minutes from ordering for the coffee to be made, by staff that could be described as anything but busy.

Atmosphere 1/5 Awful. The demeanor of the baristas and staff makes this such an uncomfortable place, I'm almost glad I didn't get a seat. I think that the manager has told them not to smile or talk in order to seem mysterious/cool. Either that, or they all truly hate their jobs as it looked like they would rather be literally anywhere else but in that cafe. I felt the same way too and decided to wait outside in the rain rather than stand around in the...

It's been twenty minutes since I've placed my order. The shop closes in ten minutes, and I'm not hopeful that I'll get my coffee before they close.

Apart from having insanely rude staff and an incompetent barista, there's nothing impressive about this shop at all. The shop is warm, and that's the only good thing I can say about this shop.

Despite not being crowded (there were three open tables), my group of four was forced to wait outside in the cold for whatever reason. We ended up coming inside because it was getting ridiculous, and only awkwardly standing around in the corner got them to seat us. Bizarrely enough, a few minutes later another group entered a few minutes after us and were seated immediately.

I bought a 600 yen (tax not listed on the menu) cup of caramel cafe ole. The rest of the coffee is in the same price range. I guess you're paying for the beans, but honestly I've had better cups of coffee from convenience stores.

They have cakes and shaved ice on the menu too. Honestly, those looked pretty delicious and the serving size was pretty good. But, I didn't try it because I didn't want to give them any more of my money. You can get a drink set for 1000 yen so I think it's worth it.

Also, apparently flash photography is prohibited, even though there are no signs saying so? And when a table of Japanese women used flash it's fine? That's Nikko...

Ordered the black pork curry and drink set ( it's frustrating as you have to order a set, no option to order things separately) the reason this is so frustrating is that the prices are quite high. It cost us almost ¥5000 just to have lunch and a drink each (2 people). That being said the atmosphere inside is very nice and relaxing. The old wooden interior is nice aesthetically but I feel that doesn't really make the prices worth it. The curry was good, but weirdly sweet. It wasn't bad per se but I've had much better curry in other places in Japan and there was only 2 pieces of pork swimming in the gigantic boat of curry. I also felt there was too much curry sauce for the amount of rice/vegetables provided. Didn't try the coffee so I can't say if the shop lives up to it's name however the set berry drink was nice and refreshing. It was a unique experience but I don't think I would...