Happy Sky Japanese Bakery — Restaurant in London

This bakery was on my list to try for the longest time as I can remember and one day I finally decided to make the trek from Northwest down and it's safe to say it's well worth the time and effort!

Immediately when I opened the door the strong smell of sugar and butter hit right into my face which really set up my expectations high for what I was about to experience. There were so many options to choose from and everything looked absolutely amazing so it took me some time to decide what to get.

In the end, I went with 5 pastries and I will write out my verdicts below:

Pain au chocolat - super flaky and buttery, lamination well-done if you look at my photo below

Matcha mochi ribbon - super flaky, with a nice matcha taste but personally would have appreciated more. Loved the chewy mochi texture inside which made it so much more fun to eat

Azuki pan - I wasn't a big fan of this one because the red bean paste felt off to me. Texture was a little more rough than what I am used to but it's good that it wasn't too sweet

Chicken katsu curry bun - a really nice savoury option if you aren't interested in sweet pastries. Katsu batter was not too thick and nicely done and the bun had two big bits of chicken meat on top of a curry paste

Petal croissant - a really interesting pastry as I had never seen such a creation before. As you can see from my photos, the lamination was very well done. Airy, flaky and buttery. I really enjoyed this one with some jam on the side

Service was great too. The Japanese staff were all so friendly and smiley and polite.

Overall, I can see why this bakery has once been ranked top 5 best bakeries in London by Time Out and I would love to go back soon to try...

I was really let down in this place. I've been driving past it over the last months and always thought I'd try it. Well I did. Really overpriced which isn't new in London so I bought the two teeny tiny pastries anyway - which to my surprise were even smaller than I though, cinnamon bun has a huge chunk but when you take a piece it's about half a palm size. I was super unimpressed. Seriously you can get better quality in Sainsbury's and Lidl's bakery for 90 p each. I was also severely ill that evening, I'm not saying it was the bakery, but there's a high chance it was. Violently vomiting food poisoning. I only ate a salad and a shake at a Vegan place after and this had egg and meat in it. There weren't many people apart from a very shocked Japanese man who was asking the teller if they had priced the goods correctly. Would not be surprised if it was sitting there for days before anyone paid that price. Lesson learned,...

Finally made it to this fab bakery! Tried almost one of everything, but the top choices are: yuzu tart, matcha bun and the chestnut bun. Bread was amazing, and the chestnut bun (bottom right) was my favourite as it was sweet with a tinge of salt it was really quite different. But the yuzu tart (peeking out from underneath that pile) is a must for that umami taste! The matcha bun was really fun with a soft chewy mochi buried under the matcha topping. Of the rest: the corner left one is sweetcorn, cheese & mayo; sitting across that is the chicken teriyaki bun and to the right of that is egg & teriyaki sauce (i think). Sitting at the very top is the apple bun, and you can just see the 2 matcha buns (green) underneath. It's a little taste of Japan in London, highly recommend! It's a little pricey, but worth it. Take out only. Opening hours are restricted so check before you go, but...