SICOU
August 29, 2021
Located in the center of a bustling Kyoto city is ‘SICOU’, a tiny special café and antique shop with a lovely rustic style interior.
Welcome to our second HopOut. Today we will visit one of the most popular areas in Kyoto for tourists and even locals, Fushimi Inari.
Fushimi Inari is mostly famous for its paths with red gates (torii) that go all the way up the mountain. it is said that there are at least 10000 torii at Fushimi Inari. True or not, someday lets find out.
However for this article we will be visiting some of the best cafes in and around the neighborhood of Fushimi Inari. Enjoy!
Please note that many of these cafes are of course extremely popular to visit during the Autumn season so come early or expect some waiting times.
So for this HopOut, we recommend starting early in the morning and start at cafe Pannari since it opens earliest of all entries, at 07:30 AM.
Get your breakfast in and then head to Tofukuji temple which is right IN FRONT of Pannari.
The cafe is pretty easy to find as it stands out with its white facade, located on a corner, right in front of the entrance that leads up to the Tofukuji shrine area.
The cafe has a long and deep interior with a long bench in the front area of the cafe and tables in the back of the cafe.
The table area in the back has both the usual tables for up to 4 persons and two booths for 2 people that offer a little more privacy.
On each table you can find a turquoise colored gas toaster that are specially made for the shop and features the Pannari logo.
Their main menu is of course sliced bread. They serve a few variations of toppings, that come with a small dish of azuki beanpaste and egg. If you like, you can warm them on the special Pannari toasters.
When you exit Pannari, right in front of you is a road that leads to Tofukuji temple grounds.
Tofukuji opens at 08:30 AM so that gives you some time to enjoy breakfast at Pannari as well as walk all the way up to the temple itself.
Along the way to Tofukuji you will find Tofukuji Funda-In on your right to take some pictures if you’d like.
Once you arrive at Tofukuji temple grounds it should be open and you will be able to go inside.
Entrance to the larger area is free of charge, however if you want to visit some of the smaller areas you will have to pay a fee between 500 and 1000 yen.
When you finish at Tofukuji which should take about 1 hour, start moving South towards Vermillion cafe. On foot this should only take about 10 minutes.
The reason why you should head there early is to get a seat on Vermillions terrace.
Located in the middle of Fushimi-Inari area on a 10 minute walk from Keihan Line – Fushimi Inari Station and JR Line’s Inari Station is Vermillion, a lovely café with a cozy atmosphere that has a large terrace with a view over Shin-Ike pond.
The café is located on a little incline surrounded by small shrines. The cafe has a simple white exterior with a red brick bench attached to the front so it cant be missed.
Inside you will be welcomed by an industrial style interior with a bare ceiling showing the corrugated plates and the steel beams, bare concrete walls and a dark brick wall behind the counter. This in combination with the dark wood furniture gives the café a cozy atmosphere. It’s main attraction however is it’s large terrace facing the pond in the back of the cafe. The furniture on the terrace consists of antique chairs and tables with one amazing rocking chair.
After finishing your brunch you can now head to Fushimi Inari. From here on out you can walk around freely and enjoy the fushimi inari gates, shrines and surrounding neighborhood. We can’t tell you what to do from here because there is too much so just enjoy.
When you are done at Fushimi Inari we have one more place to go and that is a stylish coffee shop called About Us, that is on a short walking distance from Fushimi Inari.
About Us Coffee is a trendy cafe and hostel on a 5 minute walk from the famous world heritage site Fushimi Inari.
About Us Coffee has a modern interior and walls covered with white orchids which makes it somewhat look like a bridal studio.
This is not wine, at ‘About Us Coffee’ coffee is served in a stylish wineglass.
This donut with ice cream on top is not only stylish it tastes absolutely fantastic.
Located in the center of a bustling Kyoto city is ‘SICOU’, a tiny special café and antique shop with a lovely rustic style interior.
A list of cafes that are closed but wanted to keep archived.
A list of cafes in Kansai area with English speaking staff. 関西にある英語が話せるスタッフがいるカフェ。
A list of traditional Japanese kyomachiya, kominka, nagaya, sentou renovated into cafes.