Atelier UKAI's new concept, Atelier UKAI Sentir, opened on 23 October on basement level 1 of Hankyu Umeda Main Store. Cookies and cakes made that day are sold fresh from the oven.
Atelier UKAI Sentir, a new concept from the Ukai Group, which operates mainly in the Kanto region, has opened on basement level 1 of Hankyu Umeda Main Store. It is the group's first store in western Japan with an in-store kitchen, selling cookies baked that day and cakes finished by pastry chefs. The store has a floor area of 48.5 square metres, and its interior is unified in a classical European style.
Around 10 varieties of cookies are offered, with selections changing monthly, including crumbly maple cookies, almond cookies topped with caramel and cacao cookies topped with passion fruit jam. Hokkaido butter is used in the dough, which is slowly baked in an oven at a temperature around 30 degrees lower than usual.
Sets A and B, each containing an assortment of the 6 varieties available, are ¥1,801 each. Around 5 types of cake are available, including pear shortcake, muscat-topped muscat cake and Papageno topped with flower-shaped cookies. Special gift boxes are also available.
The brand's chief pastry chef, Suzuki Shigeo (鈴木滋夫), described the cookies as having a milky flavour that brings out the taste of the butter, and said that their freshly made, freshly baked taste can only be enjoyed here. Business hours are from 10:00 to 20:00.