Just over a year ago, Dandelion Chocolate Kyoto opened its doors in the Ichinenzaka neighborhood and has already been awarded 2019 Dezeen Awards in the restaurant and bar category.

Designed by the architect Fumihiko Sano, it is a 200 m2 space located in a century-old house, which has a traditional Japanese garden, a shop, and a cocoa bar where alcohol pairings are served with desserts that express the uniqueness of cocoa beans.

For the interior of the café, Sano chose as the main material cedar wood, widely used in Japanese architecture, for the parallelism it keeps with the chocolate craft. In addition, he wanted to show the original beams and columns of the building to revive the atmosphere of the traditional Kyoto and, incidentally, create an informal space reminiscent of San Francisco, headquarters of Dandelion, a “Bean to Bar” that differs from other producers because only cane sugar and cocoa beans are used to make its chocolates, says Executive Pastry Chef Lisa Vega.