Your Local Japanese Girl

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Ginza’s 150-Year-Old Sweet Bun: The Kimuraya Anpan Walk

Two Kimuraya an-butter buns held up in front of the Kimuraya Ginza main store

A local girl in Nagoya — walking Ginza with a 150-year-old sweet bun in one hand and my husband in the other.

⏱ Time: an hour of strolling — best on weekend afternoons when the street closes to cars
💴 Budget: buns run a few hundred yen each — a full tasting spree stays under ¥1,500
📍 Where: Ginza Kimuraya, right by the Ginza 4-chome crossing, Tokyo
😰 Difficulty: zero — point at the tray, pay, walk, eat
⭐ The short version — if you read nothing else:
1. Anpan — a soft bun filled with sweet red-bean paste — was invented in 1874 by Kimuraya, and the original shop still bakes on Ginza’s main street
2. It is the bun that taught Japan to love bread: East-meets-West in a fist-sized package
3. On weekend afternoons Ginza’s main avenue becomes a pedestrian paradise — the whole street is your dining room
4. Order the classic sakura anpan, or do what we did and fall for the an-butter
Two Kimuraya an-butter buns held up in front of the Kimuraya Ginza main store
An-butter and coffee an-butter, straight out of the bag under the Kimuraya Ginza flagship sign.

Ginza is Japan’s luxury mile, and its single best purchase costs about as much as a bus ticket. On weekends the main avenue closes to traffic, the crowds spill onto the asphalt, and my husband and I joined the small pilgrimage into Kimuraya, the bakery that has stood by the Ginza 4-chome crossing since the age of the samurai ended. We came out with an-butter buns — chunky Tokachi red-bean paste and a cold slice of Hokkaido whipped butter inside a soft roll — and ate them standing in the middle of the street, because on hokosha-tengoku days, the street is exactly where you are supposed to be.

Why this bun matters

Bread arrived in Japan with foreigners and was, for years, politely ignored — it was dry, hard, and made with a yeast nobody here had. Kimuraya’s founder, a former samurai-era retainer turned baker, solved it in 1874 with a very Japanese move: he raised the dough on sakadane, a fermentation starter from sake brewing, and filled the soft result with anko, the sweet red-bean paste of traditional confectionery. Familiar filling, gentle sake-scented crumb — bread finally made sense to the Japanese palate, and anpan became one of the country’s first true East-West foods.

通TSŪ INFORMATION
what Japanese connoisseurs know

The bun has an imperial stamp of approval. In April 1875, Kimuraya presented a special anpan to Emperor Meiji — topped with a salt-pickled cherry blossom, so the Emperor could taste spring itself — and it pleased the court enough to become a regular imperial delivery. That sakura anpan is still on the trays today, navel-dimpled with its little pickled blossom, and April 4, the anniversary of the tasting, is celebrated as Anpan Day. The 通 order: get one sakura anpan for the history and one modern flavor for lunch, and note the faint sake aroma of the sakadane dough — that scent is the original 1874 technology, still fermenting away upstairs.

Couple eating Kimuraya anpan sweet buns on the Ginza pedestrian street
An-butter anpan on the closed-to-cars Chuo-dori. Eating while standing in the middle of Ginza’s main street never stops feeling illegal.

Making an afternoon of it

  • Time it for the pedestrian paradise: on Saturday, Sunday and holiday afternoons, Chuo-dori closes to cars and fills with strollers, parasols and chairs. The whole boulevard changes character — softer, slower, better.
  • Pair it with stationery heaven: Itoya, our favorite twelve floors in Tokyo, is a few minutes’ walk — our full guide is here.
  • The honest downside: weekend queues at Kimuraya are real (we waited, shuffling, maybe ten minutes) and popular flavors sell out by late afternoon. Go before 3pm for the full tray selection.

Quick facts — Ginza Kimuraya

📍 Where: Chuo-dori, next to the Ginza 4-chome crossing · open in Google Maps
💴 Buns: a few hundred yen each — cash and cards both fine
🌸 Order: sakura anpan (the 1875 original) · an-butter (our favorite)
🚶 Best time: weekend early afternoon, when the street is car-free

FAQ

What does anpan taste like?
A soft, slightly sweet roll around a dense, jammy heart of red bean — closer to a filled brioche than to cake. The bean paste reads as chocolate-adjacent to many first-timers: earthy-sweet, not sugary.

Is this the anpan from the superhero?
Yes — Anpanman, Japan’s most beloved children’s character, has this exact bun for a head. Every Japanese person you meet grew up with him. Eat respectfully.

Anything for non-sweet-tooths?
The shop bakes savory items too, and Ginza’s depachika food halls are minutes away with every alternative imaginable. But honestly: one bun. Try one bun.

🥐 Pocket recap — screenshot this bit:
• Anpan = red-bean bun, invented 1874 at Kimuraya — the shop is still on Ginza’s main street
• Sake-yeast dough + anko filling = the bread that converted Japan
• Sakura anpan carries the 1875 imperial story · an-butter is the modern star
• Go weekend afternoons: the avenue is car-free · before 3pm for full trays
• From our own street-corner lunch · nobody paid us anything

More from us: five minutes away is the best stationery store on Earth — our Itoya guide. Planning the whole trip? Start with the Perfect Japan Guide.

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