There can no longer be any doubt. If you serve up something special, the Japanese will gladly pay extra for it. Starbucks Coffee demonstrated this when it arrived from the United States in 1996 with a menu of fancy drinks at somewhat high prices. Quickly branching out nationwide, it ignited a full-scale boom of fashionable cafes. Department stores confirmed the trend later in the decade when they added takeout shops run by classy restaurants to their food floors. Now some of Japan's most exclusive hotels have entered the fray with ready-to-eat meals to go. Food, they have found, is a small luxury that people are eager to treat themselves to even at some extra cost.

Gourmet Food at Digestible Prices
The Hotel Okura Tokyo, one of the capital city's finest, has helped to spark the latest phase in this food-and-beverage boom. In May 2002 it revamped its takeout corner, the Chef's Garden, providing it with a new look and a more attractive menu. Situated inside the entrance to a restaurant on the main building's ground floor, the Chef’s Garden used to be little more than a showcase selling things like cake, bread, and canned food. The renovated shop reopened with three times the original floor space. And it has a glass wall behind which cooks can be seen at work in what the hotel calls the "performance kitchen." Now customers can watch as the bread they will soon be eating at home is removed from the oven.

With fare like breads, sandwiches, salads, and pastries included, the new menu has some 270 items among its lunchtime and dinnertime offerings. The main attraction is a selection of some 35 original dishes created by the hotel's master chef. Each week, moreover, the menu is renewed. The prices are somewhat high compared with food from other takeout shops, but they are still affordable. Most items are priced so that customers can buy a full lunch for a total of around ¥1,000 ($8.30 at ¥120 to the dollar). And the meals are far less expensive than they would be if eaten in one of the hotel's restaurants.

"People have long been asking for a takeout version of our restaurants' dishes," a spokesperson for the Hotel Okura explains. "The new Chef's Garden, we believe, offers a creative response to this demand, one that will also bring in a whole new set of customers. The weekly change in the menu has proved a hit, and the chef's specials, which are concoctions you can't even get in the adjacent restaurant, are quite popular."

One Rank Up
Before the Chef's Garden reopened, there were those who insisted it would hardly be befitting of such a prestigious establishment as the Hotel Okura to sell meals over the counter. The clientele, though, seems hugely satisfied. Some of the dishes are in such high demand that they sell out before they even reach the display cases. Working women were the first to spot this opportunity to enjoy food served up by a first-class hotel in the home, but now the customers include a fair number of male office workers, elderly couples, and foreigners living in Japan. The sales in October 2002 (of the restaurant and takeout corner together) were up 80% from a year earlier.

The food floors in department stores are usually located in the basement and go by the trendy name depa-chika, a contraction of department store with chika (underground). Originally targeted at gift-giving customers, they have since shifted emphasis to foods in general, including many prepared foods, typically a cut above what one can buy in a supermarket. Now they are also bringing in shops run by ryotei - exclusive Japanese-style restaurants - which package up meals to go. Despite their somewhat high prices, depa-chika are drawing homemakers and office workers in increasing numbers.

Not to be outdone, the Hotel Okura came up with the designation hote-ichi for its new takeout corner, crunching together hotel and ichi (one) to pinpoint the first-floor location, and the term seems to be catching on. Needless to say, we are expected to read into it that the quality on the first floor is also a level up. The Hotel Okura's spokesperson makes this explicit: "Our hote-ichi is for shoppers who have already had their fill of what the depa-chika has to offer."

The Start of a Trend
The success of the Chef's Garden seems to be fueling the popularity of other hote-ichi shops. At the Imperial Hotel Tokyo, the Gargantua Delicatessen has sold gourmet dishes to go since 1971, but the customer base hitherto was mainly limited to the hotel's regular clientele. Recently, however, young women working in neighboring offices have also been frequenting the deli. At the Rihga Royal Hotel in Osaka, the Gourmet Boutique Melissa was moved from the basement up to the first floor in April 2002, and this tripled the sales of the 550 items on the menu from Japanese, Chinese, and Western cuisines. And at the Hotel Arthur Sapporo (site is Japanese only) in Hokkaido, a takeout corner has been newly set up and is doing a brisk business in chef's specials.

So food is again becoming fashionable in Japan, at least in the case of quality dishes people can pick up at affordable prices and take home for their private enjoyment. With the winter holiday season fast approaching, it's a safe bet that the hote-ichi are already dishing out Christmas specials.