Alice's Fantasy Restaurant
The Alice in Wonderland themed cafe in Ginza
Alice’s Fantasy Restaurant is based on the famous book by Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland. There are several of these restaurants in Japan, including one called "Alice in a labyrinth", located on the 5th floor of the Taiyo Building in the chic district of Ginza in Tokyo.
Quite hard to find and only open from 5 pm, the restaurant includes several rooms to welcome clients. Reservations are strongly advised for dinner. However, at 5 pm, you can still simply enjoy a sugary break without advance booking.
While the receipt quickly adds up, the dishes, and mostly desserts, are worth it. Waiters and hostesses are dressed as Alice or the Mad Hatter, and yes, everything is based on Alice in Wonderland.
It can be quite hard to find Japanese people speaking English, so it should not be surprising that the staff only speaks Japanese. However, there is no need to worry: the menu is highly visual and translated, so ordering stays easy despite the language barrier.
The short show before the menu is presented might appear too long and perhaps seems "Lost in Translation". Indeed, it lasts 2 to 3 minutes, during which the waiter will present the menu, speaking in Japanese, and you might feel like he or she is waiting for your answer, while he or she might have lost you at the first word. Yes, this is Japan!