Tokyo’s Most Beautiful Coffee Shop?! | Skytree, Omotesando & Kengo Kuma Design

Tokyo’s Most Beautiful Coffee Shop?! | Skytree, Omotesando & Kengo Kuma Design

[Music] Good morning.
Good morning.
We are dressed non-D Disney today because it is our hotel. Oh, okay. Yeah, it’s our hotel transfer day and our Tokyo day. Yeah.
So, I’m going to miss this view. This is one of the better views we’ve both been saying. Like we even had on our honeymoon a Mira Costa harbor view to watch. fantasmic. Like
that was, don’t get me wrong, it was amazing. But it’s kind of cool to just look across both parks here and you can see all the way the castle, Mount Prometheus, Tower of Terror, the Colombia sailing ship. Like
it’s really cool.
Yeah.
So, we’re going to go check out we’re going to head into Tokyo and when we come back today, we’re going to be at an entirely different hotel.
I know where we’re going.
Yeah.
Toy Story.
That wasn’t even built last time we were here. So, I’m excited for that. All right, let’s go. We’re gonna take our bags downstairs in the beautiful lobby and we’re gonna have them transfer them over to Toy Story Hotel. So, they’ll be there waiting for us later today.
Okay. And then we’ll go see some Mania.
Yeah. Let’s go to Tokyo. [Music] This place is so beautiful. It mesmerizes me. It’s so tall. I love it here. [Music] All right, time to leave this hotel. Okay,
but we will be back.
Yes. Mhm. We will be back.
That makes sense cuz we have uh a hotel to stay at. So,
well, I mean, we’ll be back to this one later in the week, too.
Yeah. Yeah.
And as we keep mentioning, theming everywhere, Queen of Hearts, King of Hearts. Ed is doing the stairs here because at the bottom of the stairs that go from the grand lobby to the theme park entrances is one very important thing we have to see. Okay. I noticed you never designed a mosaic for me, but I’ll have a birthday eventually if you want to think about it.
Mine’s coming up first. I’ll take uh Sleeping Beauty, those mid-century, you know, plants. You can do that with mosaic for me in the house.
Okay. I think the only part I could do is break the glass,
the tiles. Yeah, sure.
Yeah. [Music] The park opens in just about a half hour and it looks like madness and it looks like it’s crazy, but I will tell you, we sat in the room last night and we watched them clear the entire plaza of admissions in like 25 minutes. So, this is rather impressive, but yes, the lines look insane. And everyone’s still coming in from my Hama station. [Music] It’s loud. It’s a city.
It is.
We made it to the end of the Yeah. the line we need to ride. Perfect.
Perfect place to do this.
Well, no. I’m just a city. So, now we’re going to go walk through the city to our first destination for the day.
Okay. [Music] Ed’s loving that the sidewalks up here in Nakamagoro are labeled for where you should walk and also bring children but ride a bike. Yeah, Ed’s Ed’s the person whose hand I’m holding
because everywhere you go, people just dart all over and it’s a mess.
Perfect lines. You know where you’re going. In case you are wondering what our destination might actually be, don’t forget this is Ed. Coffee, coffee, coffee. And it is an architectural wonder, too. So, we’re going to go check out the Starbucks Reserve Roastery here in Oh, puppy. Sorry. Here in Tokyo.
Coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee.
Follow the puppy, Ed. Follow the puppy. He’s going so compliant. [Music] Coffee. Shall we go get some coffee?
Yeah, coffee and some architecture thing. I don’t know. Hanga [Music] Hey, [Music] hey, hey. [Music] Where are we at? Heaven.
Well, I mean this is just the elevator. [Music] Oh, this is a really cool view up here. I don’t know. It’s overwhelming cuz it all the whole building is nice views of everything. And even better, it’s going to be coffee time soon. Coffee. See, Ed, I have your coffee.
Coffee. Coffee. Coffee.
I’m not even sure what we have. We have two pushcido sandwiches. A priny cream puff. You got the wildside cold brew and cola and I got something that had a whole bunch of words that even in English I don’t know what I had.
I don’t know. But they look beautiful.
They look really good. That’s one of the most amazing things about the Reserve is they put together beautiful stuff.
Yeah.
All right. Ed cold brew with cola.
Okay. Wow. That is really different in a very good way. I get the lime first before the cold brew. No, I really like it.
All right, so whatever I got has such a long name that I had to actually open up the menu on the phone to tell you what it is. It is a Kokutu. Now, let me start that again. Kokutu varabi mochi parfait latte with koji. So, basically, it’s a latte with koji. No idea. And espresso topped with wabi mochi. Okay, I can see the mochi there. As a finishing touch, ice cream and whipped cream are placed on top and a brown sugar syrup and roasted soybean flour, kanakaco, are sprinkled to finish like a Japanese sweet. So, she said I’m supposed to take the little spoon and mix it up a little bit. And then the spoon is also there to eat the mochi. Wow. I have the same problem you had with yours. It’s just good. whatever it is. The food as always was so good.
Yeah. And so peculiar.
Yeah.
Even when we went to like Seattle, it’s the same kitchen that does the food. It’s crunchy, you know, food. So So good. Yeah.
And my drink might be one of my favorite coffee beverages I’ve ever had.
Yes. Yours was awesome.
And from different from last time in Seattle, mine was not my favorite.
Yeah.
Very acidic cuz it was lime in my coffee. But now we’re going to go make our way back down from the fourth floor here and explore the rest of the building and then get our merch. All right. [Music] You could smell the beans roasting. And I think I wanted this design at home. Okay. For my birthday. You want the whole fourstory roasting canister?
At least. At least. The stairwell in here is so cool. It’s all the artwork of the Seattle roastery, which we’ve been to. There’s the one up there that we’re at right now. We are in Tokyo. So [Music] [Music] [Music] You know us, Ed’s always got us to the Starbucks, but this one was a beautiful building by Kangokuma. I’m in love with it. But on to the next stop cuz we already caused enough damage. I love that using the elevators with Ed, we end up finding these weird like corner elevators that go from platforms to stations and the scary man with a swollen hand. [Music] So for my birthday, Ed, you researched a whole bunch of famous architect buildings here in Tokyo.
So a lot of them are up here in Ginsa. So we’re going to go for an architecture walk now as part of our day.
Okay. I’m excited.
I don’t even know what we’re seeing. I plugged it in. I said destination, please. Because you looked it up.
We’ll just assume it’s right. I don’t know. All right. Let’s go see what we’re going to see.
Okay. Heat. [Music] [Music] Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] One of our favorite things here in Japan is anywhere you go for food, they have like display food so you can understand what you’re eating. But this place that we’re walking past right now, what is it? It’s Goku Burger. Takes it to a whole another level.
Oh yeah. And apparently you wear gloves to eat a Goku burger because why wouldn’t you? I love that as we’re walking down Cat Street, Cat Alley.
Yeah.
Mixed in with all these modern new high-end, you know, uh, retail businesses are also these older looking buildings that some of them are definitely older. Some of them I can’t tell if they’re designed to look older, but so cool. All right, we’re surrounded by famous architecture likeando hills by Tadawando and all these expensive stores. I can feel like Ed and I don’t belong. But of course, what does Ed find as we’re walking through Ginsa here? [Music] There’s island vintage coffee.
What? We love this place when we used to live in Hawaii.
We’re definitely overcaffeinated, but
I don’t need any. But we can go check it out cuz I think we’re going down this way
if we have to. One of the places Ed found for us to go is called it Toyo Ginsza. It is essentially a 12f floor store of stationary items. So pens, writing instruments, which the architect needs it. Yeah. So we’re going to go check it out. But I got to show you the directory here. I don’t even know where to begin. All right. [Music] Papa Pa Pa Pa [Music] The fries just had a kind of fun spice on them. Basically, Ed and I both said they tasted like MSG, but they were delicious. How’s the burger? That’s really good. Really different.
Okay, I’ll have to try it, too. Yep. Basically, neither of us knows how to describe it. We just know it’s good. It’s got like a teriyak flavor, but then there’s some sort of like mashed potato flavor on it. It’s just good. And this is why we come to McDonald’s in foreign countries. You don’t get a Big Mac. You get totally different. [Music] I don’t have things like this in the US. It’s a really good teriyak burger. Cheeseburger. So, for the traveling husbands, a trip to an international destination would not be complete without McDonald’s.
It’s true. And honestly,
we don’t order just anything and just come and eat McDonald’s cuz it’s familiar.
We get the McDonald’s strange things,
right? Like like all of that, whatever that is. [Music] Okay, we reached our next destination. I just want to point out this is Ed’s desire.
And then we get here and the first thing I did was swear. Thankfully, it was in Japanese and maybe you did in No, you didn’t swear in Japanese. You swore in English and everybody here speaks it.
It’s uh extremely tall. [Music] That’s a little insane. And we’re going to go up there.
Great. I’m only terrified of heights, so this should be This one also has a glass floor for you, too, Ed. Oh, this sounds
And it’s like twice or three times as tall. I don’t know.
It sounds like a uh challenge on like the Amazing Race for it.
Okay, let’s go check in and see what we can do. And we know it’s very touristy, but we’ve done a lot of the things in Tokyo the first time we were here. This was not one of them. So, we said, “All right, whatever. We’re going to go experience it and check it out.” To me, it’s also really cool cuz the way they built it.
Yeah. To withstand typhoons and earthquakes and all that. Oh, I shouldn’t have said that before we went up.
Probably not cuz
Oh, yeah. Let’s go. Okay. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] That was a fast elevator.
It’s extremely fast.
600 m per second,
which is how I keep
Yeah. or meters per minute or something like that.
We’ll put on the subtitle. But wow, it is beautiful up here. It is huge. And we could see all the way out to Disney on this side. Yes.
Which is way out there somewhere.
So, the only thing apparently you can’t see today is Fuji, which is fine. Fuji hides most days anyway. And I’ve seen it and I’ve woken up to it. That’s rude. Wow. We’re going to go check out more of the tempo deck here.
Yeah. [Music] All right. Just in case you missed it, someone is here for his birthday. Yeah. And we just took a special photo for my birthday and everything.
Yeah. I think it is really cool up here.
Yeah. I would say it’s kind of not the Tokyo feel if that’s what you’re going for cuz that’s all happening down there. But I am glad we came and did this on our second trip here to Tokyo. Okay. And I’m really enjoying it. And we’re gonna keep walking around and then head up to the galleria deck even higher. [Music] Really tall.
All right. I thought that deck was high. This is even higher. And I did not realize when you take the elevator from the tempo deck to the galleria, you actually go outside in the like it’s a glass elevator, you can see what’s around you in the tower coming up here.
Ed didn’t look. Is this Is this too high for you, Ed? You won’t even look out the window. Happy birthday to you.
Thank you. This is your destination on the list.
Just remember that.
Great. And down below us is where we were before. And this is where we are now. Honestly, from this height, they look like toy cars.
Yes. Ed just asked me if I’m scared leaning over like this, and I said, “No, it doesn’t even look real. It looks like a screen.” It’s beautiful, though.
It is. So, the whole time we were heading over here, even though Ed’s looked at pictures of Sky Tree, he just told me he thought we were going here. That right there in the distance is the Tokyo Tower, which is like the Eiffel Tower and significantly shorter than this building that we’re in. You thought we were going there at I was wrong. This is much taller. We made it to the highest point in the tower.
I’m being so I’m a pretty boy. Wow. What’s the difference?
451.2 m. That seems like
I’ll let all of you do the math.
Yeah. [Music] Great. What did you think, Ed?
It was awesome.
I thought that was really cool. I’m glad we did it.
Yeah,
I really enjoyed myself.
It was uh Great views. Mhm. And even considering the weather today being overcast and cloudy, you could still see everything all the way to the mountains. Just not Fuji, which was fine with me.
Okay. Views were great. So now from something very modern, we’re going to go see something a little historic. Best 200 yen in 15 minutes I ever spent. Ever. Like literally ever.
Well, it’s cuz you won’t go for a massage. But maybe it’ll change now.
Oh, no, no, no. I just want the chair.
Okay.
All right. Buy me one. It’s my birthday. See? Happy birthday. Buy me one.
I don’t think so.

Come with us as we kick off our Tokyo city adventure! We start with one of the most stunning coffee shops in the world — the Starbucks Reserve Roastery Tokyo, designed by legendary architect Kengo Kuma. From there, we visit the Tokyo Skytree for jaw-dropping views, stroll through the Omotesandō neighborhood for an architecture walk, and end with some Tokyo street culture in Asakusa.

🗼 Favorite stops in this video:

Starbucks Reserve Roastery Tokyo (4-story flagship!)
Kengo Kuma’s incredible architectural details
Tokyo Skytree observation deck (450m high!)
Omotesandō’s sleek modern buildings
Lunch at McDonald’s Japan (yes, really!)
Historic Asakusa temple district
💬 Let us know in the comments: Which spot would you visit first?

🎥 Watch our full Tokyo Disney series: [Insert playlist link]
📍 Check out our blog: https://thetravelinghusbands.net
📲 Follow us on Instagram: @thetravelinghusbands

#tokyo #starbucksroastery #kengokuma #tokyotravel #skytree #thetravelinghusbands
#StarbucksReserveTokyo #KengoKuma #TokyoArchitecture #TokyoSkytree #Omotesando #TheTravelingHusbands #TokyoTravelVlog #AccessibleTravel #StarbucksJapan #Nakameguro #LGBTQTravelers

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Thanks for joining us! We’re Jason and Ed — The Traveling Husbands!

We’re a married LGBTQ+ couple sharing our love of travel, Disney, and real-life adventure. After time living in the heart of Orlando, the island of O‘ahu, and most recently New England, we’ve returned to the sunny Southwest and now call Phoenix, Arizona home.

We’re lifelong Disney fans who’ve explored parks around the world. While living in Orlando, we visited Walt Disney World and Universal Studios regularly, and we still make frequent trips to Disneyland in California. For our honeymoon, we spent a week at Tokyo Disney Resort — staying at 3 of the 4 Disney hotels, including Hotel Miracosta, where our room looked directly into DisneySea and Fantasmic!

That was just the beginning of our travels in Japan, one of our favorite destinations.

We’ve also spent meaningful time in Europe. Ed studied abroad in Paris, and together we spent a month in a small village in Southwest Germany, fully immersed in the culture. We’ve also explored London, Zurich, Alsace, and Barcelona.

The Hawaiian Islands — especially the Kona Coast on the Big Island — hold a special place in our hearts. It’s where we got married and where we return often to reconnect and recharge.

We both grew up in the Northeast and took many family trips across New England, the Mid-Atlantic, and Canada. Living in Phoenix has given us a new launchpad to explore the American Southwest, from Los Angeles to San Diego and beyond.

In 2019, Ed was diagnosed with brain cancer — a moment that changed our lives. But we’ve kept traveling, adapting, and finding joy in the journey. Our adventures now include mobility aids, new rhythms, and a deeper appreciation for every destination.

We’re so glad you’re here. Follow along for honest travel stories, Disney magic, resilience, and real-life adventure — near and far — across all our platforms @TheTravelingHusbands.