Unhurried Days in Yokohama: Coffee on the Bluff, an Afternoon at the Museum, a Day at Hammerhead

Again, not a single day. These are separate afternoons in Yokohama with nothing much planned.

Up the hill to UNDER BLUFF COFFEE

Early in the day we went up to a coffee shop on the Yamate hill. A place cut off from the noise of the city below.

Ueno-cho, at the top of the slope

UNDER BLUFF COFFEE is in Ueno-cho, Naka-ku, Yokohama. The Yamate area — a residential district up the hill.

It is within walking distance of Motomachi and Chinatown, where the tourists gather, but by the time you are up here the number of people drops off sharply. The same Yokohama, and time runs completely differently on the seaward side and on the hill.

You sit facing the window

Inside, the counter seating faces the windows. You sit looking out, so the arrangement is for each person to be quietly on their own rather than talking across a table.

In the morning that quiet does its work. A shop just after opening has the feeling that nothing has happened yet that day.

The sister shop of a bakery

This is a sister shop of Blaff Bakery, which is well known in Yokohama. So the bread is good. It is not a coffee-only place; it stands up as somewhere you go to eat something baked.

That day I had something sweet and an iced coffee.

Somewhere worth going in the morning

Cafés tend to be an afternoon or early-evening thing. But there are places whose quality only comes out in the morning, and this was one.

The effort of climbing the slope to the top of the hill is itself the switch. Sit down after walking yourself out of breath and the first mouthful of coffee is different.

Notes from this visit

• UNDER BLUFF COFFEE, Ueno-cho, Naka-ku, Yokohama — the Yamate area
• A sister shop of the well-known Yokohama bakery Blaff Bakery, so the baking is the point as much as the coffee
• Counter seating faces the windows
• Walkable from Motomachi and Chinatown, but far quieter
• Menu, prices and hours change. Check before you go

Prices and opening details are as they were at the time of the visit. Some images here are illustrations generated from my own photographs, not photographs themselves.

The museum, then lunch, and the conversation that kept going

After walking round the museum we ate in the same part of Minato Mirai. Running a day on art and food is easy to arrange in this city.

To the museum in Minato Mirai

Yokohama Museum of Art is in the Minato Mirai 21 district. There is a broad plaza in front, and you see the face of the building from it.

Walking round an exhibition uses your body. You end up looking for somewhere to sit as you go, and when you are concentrating your sense of time disappears. Coming out, more of it has passed than you expected.

The meal after you have finished looking

We left the museum and went to eat.

A meal after an exhibition has a particular function: it becomes the time when you talk about what you saw. Without quite managing to put it into words, you go back and forth on what you made of this or that. The exchange itself works as a continuation of the exhibition.

We went into Del Mar, the Spanish restaurant in Minato Mirai, which we have been to on other days too.

On going to the same restaurant more than once

A restaurant on a trip tends to be a single visit. A restaurant near where you live, you can go back to as often as you like.

By the second and third time, the way you order changes. You remember what you had before, so you can choose on the basis of having something different today. That sense of a relationship accumulating with a restaurant is not something a famous place far away can give you.

Living in Yokohama is what makes a day like this possible. Go to the museum, walk to lunch, be home the same day. It is not travel, and it is still a day on which you went somewhere.

Notes from this day

• Yokohama Museum of Art is in the Minato Mirai 21 district
• Lunch was at Del Mar, a Spanish restaurant in Minato Mirai
• Pairing the museum and a meal in one day involves almost no travelling between them
• Exhibitions and opening hours change. Check before you go

Opening details are as they were at the time of the visit. Some images here are illustrations, not photographs.

An ordinary day at Yokohama Hammerhead

You survive the busy weekdays somehow, and the weekend morning that follows always starts a little slow. We make no real plans. We simply point ourselves toward Hammerhead, on Yokohama’s waterfront, and let the sea air and the open view unknot whatever the week tied up.

Morning at Hammerhead, loosening the week’s tension

First, a bowl of dashi chazuke at a shop that serves Itoen matcha — unshowy, careful cooking that lands deeper than fancier food ever seems to. By the time the bowl is empty, I have stopped checking the time entirely. That is usually how I know the weekend has actually begun.

Two drinks, one shaded table

From there, Starbucks. The sun was strong that day, so the shaded terrace seats chose themselves. An affogato Frappuccino for me, an Americano for my wife — one cold glass and one warm cup sharing a table, our different tastes sitting comfortably side by side. In front of us, a little pale-blue trailer; around us, the bright voices of tourists weaving through the unhurried footsteps of locals.

The luxury of an unremarkable afternoon

Against that gentle noise we talked about our daughter’s growing up, and about a trip we might take before long. No conclusions were reached; the pleasure was in the exchange itself. No event, no purchase, nothing to photograph — and yet I am increasingly sure this is the richest kind of time there is. Wealth, in the end, may just be the accumulation of quiet afternoons like this one.

Notes from the day

• Place: Yokohama Hammerhead (Shinko Pier) — an open waterfront setting
• The shape of the day: a morning stroll, dashi chazuke, then coffee on the terrace — nothing more ambitious than that
• The drinks: an affogato Frappuccino for me, an Americano for my wife
• The takeaway: richness lives in the hours that ask for nothing special

Morning coffee at ZEBRA, on the water

Early in the day we went to a croissant place on the water. My wife and I, at the hour it had just opened.

A corner of Marine & Walk

MARINE & WALK YOKOHAMA is a waterfront retail complex between the Red Brick Warehouse and Hammerhead. The buildings are low and the walkways are outdoors, so there is always wind through it as you walk.

In one corner of it is ZEBRA Coffee & Croissant. As the name says, croissants and coffee.

In the morning there are still few people

The complex fills up after midday. It is a place for shopping and eating, so of course it does.

The morning is different. With only a limited number of places open, the walkways are empty too. There is a stretch of time when you can walk looking out to sea and pass nobody at all.

We ordered croissant-family bread

We ordered croissant-type pastries and coffee. With croissant in the name, this is a place chosen for the baking. Most people there are there for exactly that — something baked, in the morning.

With two of you, the talking runs long

With a child, the morning is organised around moving them. Wake them, feed them, get to the next place.

With two of you, that part drops out. You sit, you drink the coffee, and you are still talking. I cannot remember what we talked about; only the sense that it went on a long time. That use of a morning is only available at this number of people.

Notes from this visit

• ZEBRA Coffee & Croissant, inside MARINE & WALK YOKOHAMA
• On the water between the Red Brick Warehouse and Hammerhead
• Croissants and other baking, with coffee
• The whole complex is quiet in the morning
• Hours and menu change. Check before you go

Opening details are as they were at the time of the visit. Some images here are illustrations, not photographs.