By Donican Lam,
Workshops for foreign visitors to make bento box lunches with food items arranged in the shapes of cute characters could help uncover new possibilities for restaurants seeking to cater to the inbound tourist trade.
While cooking classes for tourists are not a new concept, the newly-launched "kyaraben" classes by event-organizing group Umami Experience are hosted by dining establishments, effectively utilizing the gap between mealtimes to generate new revenue streams.
"When considering how to increase sales in the downtime between lunch and dinner, we thought of a tripartite approach, where the restaurant operates with three different faces," said Yuki Yamaguchi, representative director of But Art Inc.
The social media marketing company, which specializes in using influencers to promote local businesses, launched the Umami Experience project last month in collaboration with restaurant operator Bright with the aim of tailoring experiences for inbound tourists.
The kyaraben classes are held at Umamitakurami, a restaurant operated by Bright in Tokyo's Akasaka district that only opens for lunch, allowing it to host character bento classes before re-opening as a branch of the night cafe and bar Ikio in the evening.
Kyaraben, commonly practiced by parents making lunch for their children, involves arranging various food items such as rice, vegetables, eggs, or meat into cute designs or characters.
The portrayal of intricately arranged bento boxes in anime and on social media has helped fuel the kyaraben fad, with numerous cooking schools and private instructors now offering such classes for inbound tourists across Japan.
"In many cases, (kyaraben classes) are done at residences. I don't think it's very common to hold them in restaurants," said Yamaguchi.
Ten influencers attended a pre-launch Umami Experience class on Jan. 21 at Umamitakurami, where they were taught how to make panda-shaped character bento boxes, creating faces out of seaweed and mounds of rice, and making hearts from mini sausages.
Tokyo-based Australian travel and foodie influencer Stefatty, who was among the participants, later posted on her Instagram that the experience made her "obsessed with making tamagoyaki (Japanese omelette) at home."
Bookings for the 2.5-hour classes can be made for weekdays on TripAdvisor for 8,000 yen ($55) per person, and Yamaguchi said he hopes to provide character bento expertise to other restaurant owners in the future, so they can run such workshops themselves.
More activities under the Umami Experience label are also in the works, including a dinner course paired with Japanese sake cocktails, and expanding the kyaraben classes to include "character cakes."
"As we have a number of chefs who used to work at five-star hotels, we are considering upgrading the quality of the dishes by using better ingredients and trying out different dessert arrangements," said Yamaguchi.
Related coverage:
Latest gaming PCs proving popular at Tokyo Game Show
Japanese pastry flavors mimic stages of love with help from AI
Wasabi effective in improving memory of elderly: study
