Marion Crepes (Tokyo) – Famous Japanese Crepe Store Along Takeshita Street, Harajuku

During our food hunt along Takeshita Street in Harajuku (Tokyo), we checked out the delicious crepes from Marion Crepes. This is one of the most famous crepes shop in Japan! Harajuku is synonymous with Japanese crepes, so we saw several other popular crepes shops here too.

Marion Crepes (Harajuku)

Marion Crepes is a crepe shop famous for its delicious Japanese style crepes. It claims to be Japan’s oldest crepe shop, though that claim is disputed by some.

Nonetheless, it has come a long way since starting as a food truck in 1976. A year later, it moved to a permanent location along Takeshita Street in Harajuku, and has stayed there ever since.

Over the years, Marion Crepes has expanded its business significantly. It now has over 80 outlets across Japan, as well as branches in USA and Hawaii.

According to their website, their crepes are made with a blend of 10 “secret ingredients”, including some French spices that add unique flavours.

We visited the Harajuku outlet at Takeshita Street, which as mentioned earlier, is Marion Crepes’ first ever branch. We saw a few other famous crepes shops nearby, such as Angel Heart and Santa Monica Crepes. Angel Heart is located directly opposite Marion Crepes. We didn’t check out these two other crepes shops though.

We visited on a Sunday at around 2.45pm, and there was only a short queue. We got our crepes within around 10 minutes.

Marion Crepes Menu

click here to enlarge the menu

The Harajuku outlet offers a dizzying selection of over 100 crepe combinations! We were quite overwhelmed when we saw the choices available. Luckily, there was a nifty glass display with many fake crepe samples for our reference.

We preferred the sweet crepes, especially those that came with Nutella, strawberries, mango, banana, chocolate ice cream, or vanilla ice cream. I think it’s pretty hard to go wrong with any combinations of these delicious ingredients.

There were also savoury crepes that had curry, tuna, and cheese fillings. However, these flavours were a little too funky for us.

There is also a small selection of Tapioca Drinks, but we didn’t try this as Marion Crepes is not really known for its bubble tea.

If you’re feeling really hungry, you can go for the Mega Marion (JPY 1000), which is twice the size of the regular crepe. Good luck trying to finish it though.

Strawberry Chocolate Chocolat (#34)

After thinking for a while, the wife and I decided to get the Strawberry Chocolate Chocolat #34 (JPY 530) because we liked its ingredients. Incidentally, I also liked how the name rolled off my tongue: chocolate chocolat.

It was cool to see the staff preparing the crepe in front of me. I got a bit hungry while watching.

Soon, I was served with the sumptuous crepe! It consisted of a scoop of chocolate ice cream, strawberry slices, a cracker and a generous portion of whipped cream. The finishing touch was a drizzle of sweet nutella.

I really liked the crepe skin! It had a smooth texture that felt really good in my mouth. And unlike French crepes which are usually quite rich and buttery, the Japanese crepe had a relatively lighter taste. This was good to balance out the richness of the fillings.

The chocolate ice cream, whipped cream, and strawberry turned into a luscious sweet mush in my mouth, punctuated by the crunch of the slightly salty cracker. The sweet nutella completed the wonderful experience.

This was definitely one satisfying sweet treat!

However, I do not recommend eating this by yourself, because it got a little jelak (overwhelming) halfway through for me. However, the portion was just nice to share between the wife and me.

Conclusion

Japanese crepe is the quintessential Harajuku street food, so I highly recommend checking out Marion Crepes if you’re in Tokyo. It was really delicious and satisfying! And it’s pretty cool that this crepe shop was one of the pioneers of Japanese crepes, with a history dating back to over 40 years ago.

Marion Crepes
What to Order: Strawberry Chocolate Chocolat #34 (JPY 530)
Directions: the shop is located near the middle of Takeshita Street, a three minute walk from Harajuku Station (Takeshita Street Exit).
Opening Hours: Daily 10.30am to 8pm
English Address: 1 Chome 6-15 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0001, Japan
Japanese Adress: 〒150-0001 東京都渋谷区神宮前 1-6-1-5
Other Branch Locations: www.marion-crepes.com/shop

This article is part of our super awesome Ultimate Tokyo Travel Guide For First Timers. Everything you need to know about Tokyo is just a click away!