Sunday, 10 August 2025. Thin cloud all day, the sea a little dull with it. We drove to Hayama anyway, because the point of the day was to eat. The destination was MARLOWE, on the first floor above ground at Hayama Marina.
12:22, parked and looking up at the building. “HAYAMA MARINA” in large letters on a white wall, and “MARINA PLAZA” on the brick porte-cochère in front of it. There is no showmanship in the signage at all — it reads like a yacht harbour’s administration block that gradually turned into a shopping arcade.
The whole wall was window, and beyond it was the sea
12:27, shown to a table, and I stopped in the doorway. One entire wall is window, and what is on the other side is the sea. The horizon was soft in the cloud, but there was nothing at all blocking the view.
The interior is not new, to be honest. Amber wooden floor, slightly heavy chairs, round glass tables, a yellow-painted curve across the ceiling. It has the air of a room worked on in small increments since the 1980s, and that is precisely why it is restful. On the shelf to the right, rows of those beaker-shaped pudding jars.
A craft beer brewed in Hayama
12:39, the drinks arrive. The mug has been chilled until it is white, and frost stays on the surface from the moment it is poured. Then I looked at the small bottle beside it and was mildly surprised: “HAYAMA Craft Brewing,” “Weizen Shake,” with an illustration of a man in a trench coat and hat, and the word MARLOWE. A Hayama craft beer carrying this restaurant’s name.
Being a weizen, it pours a cloudy pale gold. Almost no bitterness; a soft banana sweetness lifts as you take it in. It goes well with a mug that cold. As a beer to drink at midday, nothing could be lighter.
A glass carafe of water comes to the table too. From a window seat you can see the yacht masts standing beyond it, the pontoon, and the white boats moored along it.
Thick-cut potatoes, and grilled beef
12:57, the first plate. Skin-on potatoes cut into thick rounds, fried until browned, heaped on a large flat plate with indigo painting on it. Grated cheese, and a dark savoury sauce here and there.
It looks entirely plain. But bite one and the outside cracks and the inside is floury and hot. The salt and the depth of the sauce make it a plate that exists to summon beer. The grandeur of the plate only sharpens how plain the food on it is.
13:04, the main. Thickly carved beef laid out on a large black plate — well browned on the surface, and still a clean rose colour through the cut. With it, yellow and red peppers, aubergine, courgette and leaves, the vegetables properly marked from the grill as well.
The beef is cooked to keep some resistance rather than to be soft. It is the kind that gives up more flavour the longer you chew, and it was best eaten with no sauce added at all.
The pudding comes turned out onto a plate
And then 13:18. This is the thing I remember from the day.
MARLOWE pudding is famous in the form it is sold as a gift: in a heatproof laboratory beaker. It began as a dessert on the restaurant menu; when people asked to take it home, the kitchen handed it over in the beaker it had been cooked in.
In the restaurant, though, it is turned out of the beaker onto a plate. A cylinder of pudding standing in the middle of a white plate, caramel spread around it like a lake, and “Marlowe” written along the rim in the same caramel, in a joined-up hand. The ceramic spoon that comes with it carries a drawing of the pudding and the shop’s name.
Put the spoon in and there is more resistance than you expect. This is not the wobbling kind — it is firm. It is baked in an oven and set by egg alone, in the old style. In the mouth it reads less as soft than as dense. The egg comes straight at you, then the sweetness of milk behind it. The caramel is properly bitter, and pulls the whole thing tight at the end.
Honestly, the meal itself is not “a famous restaurant” experience. It is a slightly weathered restaurant at a marina with a view of the sea. But the pudding was in a different class. On the last spoonful I was glad we had driven out.
Notes from the day
- Visited: Sunday 10 August 2025, roughly 12:22–13:20. Cloudy
- MARLOWE Hayama Marina — inside Hayama Marina, Horiuchi, Hayama-machi, Miura-gun, Kanagawa
- Three functions in one room: restaurant, café and takeaway. You can buy a beaker pudding to take home without eating in
- Hours at the time of visiting: 10:00–19:00, lunch last orders 14:00. Check the official site for current times
- Window seats and the rest are completely different rooms. If you want the sea, it is worth asking whether a window table is free when you are shown in
- The pudding is served turned out onto a plate in the restaurant, and sold in the beaker to take away. The same pudding reads very differently — try both
- The “HAYAMA Craft Brewing / Weizen Shake” is a local Hayama beer. Note it if someone in the party is driving
MARLOWE’s original shop, incidentally, is further down the coast in Akiya, Yokosuka. It opened in 1984, and the beaker pudding was born there. That is the next one to visit.
Related Articles
Comments