Minimal - Bean to Bar Chocolate -, a specialty chocolate shop from Japan (https://mini-mal.tokyo/), will serve its "Minimal Chocolate Afternoon Tea 26 Christmas" at Minimal The Specialty Azabudai Hills. It will be available on weekends only, from December 5 (Sat) to December 27 (Sun), 2026.
Reservations are scheduled to open on November 1, 2026.
A Christmas afternoon tea made by a chocolate specialist will be available in December only. The menu is built around chocolate, from a 9-layer opera to savory dishes that bring out the individual character of the cacao.
The special dessert is a "Chocolate Opera" that stacks five components in nine layers. The lineup ranges from colorful sweets made with strawberries and pistachios to savory items such as roast beef and nachos that use chocolate in their sauces. A chocolate tasting is also included, so guests can compare how the cacao differs by origin and production method. The set pairs chocolate as a sweet with a look at the depth of the ingredient itself.
Special Dessert: 9-Layer Chocolate Opera
This is Minimal's reinterpretation of the classic chocolate cake "Opera." It uses no coffee. Instead, it is built around chocolate with 80% cacao content, expressing depth through varying degrees of aroma, sweetness, and bitterness, and is dressed in a festive Christmas look.
Five components (glaçage, butter cream, biscuit Joconde, ganache, and chocolate) are stacked in nine layers. The changes in flavor and texture give the cake a deep taste using chocolate alone.
Tier 1: Chocolate Sweets
Clockwise from the top right.
Strawberry and Chocolate Verrine
Sweet-tart strawberries are made into a fresh jam and topped with a white chocolate mousse with a mellow sweetness. A ganache that combines the sharp acidity of cassis with the richness of chocolate is added to bring out the strawberries' sweet tartness.
Pistachio and Chocolate Christmas Tart
A cute, tree-shaped tart that layers pistachio crème d'amande and sweet-tart raspberry jam, finished with a piping of pistachio and white chocolate cream.
Chocolate Wreath Cookie
A wreath-shaped cookie made by piping milk chocolate cream onto a crisp tart cookie. The cream is made with Madagascar cacao, which has a berry-like flavor.
Tier 2: Chocolate Sweets
Clockwise from the bottom right.
Gâteau Chocolat Soft - Stollen -
A gâteau chocolat styled after stollen. It is made with 80% Venezuelan cacao chocolate and plenty of pistachios, raisins, apricots, and orange confit.
Chocolate Macaron - Strawberry -
The macaron uses white chocolate mixed with strawberries. Instead of cream, the filling is sweet bean paste (anko), a Japanese approach that creates a natural sweetness and the contrast between the outside and inside textures typical of a macaron.
Chocolate Ice Cream with Strawberry Soup
Chocolate ice cream made with Ghanaian cacao beans is served with a soup of sweet-tart, fragrant "Nyoho" strawberries and a milk jelly. The rich depth of the cacao and the bright aroma of the strawberries melt together, and the mellowness of the milk envelops the whole dish.
Tier 3: Savory
Clockwise from the bottom right.
Roast Beef with Red Wine Chocolate Sauce
Roast beef made with meat from Miyazaki Prefecture, with its natural flavor brought out, is served with a chocolate sauce. The sauce is made with red wine and chocolate from Peruvian cacao beans, which adds rich body and depth.
Nachos with Chili con Carne "Mole" (Cacao-Based Sauce)
Tortilla chips and cheese chips are dipped in a chili con carne sauce mixed with a chocolate sauce known as "mole." The mole is made by blending chocolate from Ghanaian cacao with Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, butter, soy sauce, and more.
Cacao Nib Salad
A salad of colorful vegetables finished with fruity Madagascar cacao nibs and a French dressing.
Five-Chocolate / Cacao Tasting
This plate lets guests enjoy the chocolate and cacao used in the sweets and savory dishes on their own.
The chocolate is made from only cacao and sugar, and expresses fruit-like and nut-like flavors depending on the origin and production method.
Guests can compare the different tastes by origin, as well as the difference between the chocolate as a sweet and as a plain bar.
Event Details
Minimal Chocolate Afternoon Tea 26 Christmas
- Period: December 5 (Sat) to December 27 (Sun), 2026, Saturdays and Sundays only (planned)
- Price: ¥7,900 (tax included). Tea or coffee is included. Alcoholic drinks are charged separately.
- Location: Minimal The Specialty Azabudai Hills, 2F Garden Plaza A, Azabudai Hills, 5-8-1 Toranomon, Minato-ku, Tokyo
- Access: Directly connected to Exit 5 of Kamiyacho Station on the Tokyo Metro Hibiya Line
- Reservations: https://www.tablecheck.com/shops/minimal-azabudai/reserve
- Reservations are scheduled to open at 10:00 AM on November 1, 2026.
About Minimal
Minimal visits cacao-producing regions around the world, and its artisans make chocolate by hand, one piece at a time, from high-quality cacao beans. True to its founding principle of "carefully and simply, using the finest ingredients and drawing out their aroma to the fullest," patissiers, chocolatiers, and artisans who honed their skills at Michelin-starred restaurants and top patisseries in Japan and abroad work together as a team to create Minimal's chocolate and sweets.
For its cacao, Minimal researches and gives lectures on fermentation and drying at the places of origin, and works with cacao farmers to develop flavors suited to high quality and high prices. Aiming for the sustainable economic independence of the cacao industry, which still bears traces of the plantation system, it provides technical support and engages in fair and ethical trade. In 2019, it surveyed cacao in Nicaragua as part of a JICA ODA project feasibility survey.
Guided by a "subtraction" philosophy that lets the ingredients speak for themselves, and by its own production methods, Minimal has won awards at international competitions for 11 consecutive years, with a total of 112 awards. It aims to deliver "chocolate that stays in the heart," the kind that makes people think "I want to eat this again!"
Minimal The Specialty Azabudai Hills
Hours: 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM, open daily
