Gourmet Chocolate Near Me at Tokyo Station: Palet d'Or's Marunouchi Salon

Chocolatier Palet d'Or sits on the first floor of the Shin-Marunouchi Building at 1-5-1 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, a short walk from the Marunouchi side of Tokyo Station, and it is open 11:00 to 21:00 Monday to Saturday. Its bean-to-bar tablets start at ¥1,836, and every bonbon can be bought singly. For travellers searching gourmet chocolate near me around Tokyo Station, this is the counter where the chocolate is made from beans the company roasts itself. Call 03-5293-8877.

Owner-chef Shunsuke Saegusa was born in Osaka in 1956. His profile on the brand site says he opened a pastry shop called Mélange in Suita in 1991, went to France in 1996 and was mentored in Lyon by Maurice Bernachon. He opened Chocolatier Palet d'Or in Nishi-Umeda, Osaka, in 2004, describing it as the Kansai region's first full chocolate specialist, and brought the brand to Marunouchi in 2007.

In 2014 he turned a resort café he ran in Kiyosato, Yamanashi, into Artisan Palet d'Or, a bean-to-bar workshop, and closed all of his other pastry brands to focus on chocolate. The workshop now processes more than 10 tonnes of cacao a year, according to the company, and its tablets have won prizes at the International Chocolate Awards and the Academy of Chocolate in Britain.

The name means gold disc in French, and the bonbon of that name is the house signature: a blend of the shop's own chocolates built mainly on cacao from Trinidad and Tobago and balanced so no single origin dominates. The Dassai chocolates use the sake Dassai Migaki Niwari Sanbu, in a bitter version that brings out the rice aroma and a milk version with a little salt. The Liquors Collection pairs house chocolate with sake, Champagne and whisky.

Whisky drinkers have two more options. The Japanese Whisky Collection box costs ¥3,888 on the official online shop, and the Malt Tablet is made from cacao beans stored in empty casks from Venture Whisky's Chichibu Distillery, so the bar picks up a faint oak and malt note. For a mixed introduction, the Coffret Mariage is ¥3,456. The cat-themed Coffret Chaton Edition Palet, ¥3,240, is due back in stock in late October.

The Tokyo shop is one of only two locations with a salon, the other being Osaka. The menu runs to seasonal parfaits, cakes made with house chocolate, a coffee blended to match the chocolates, and Bean to Cocoa, a hot cocoa made from cacao powder the company presses itself. The autumn chocolates and autumn parfait went on sale on September 4, so the current parfait is the seasonal one.

Two cakes are always on the list. Alcioccolata is a dense hazelnut ganache cake that Saegusa created after a trip to Italy, and Sicilien layers pistachio sponge with a bitter chocolate mousse and pistachio cream. Both can be ordered whole for collection at the Tokyo shop, at ¥6,534 for a 12cm cake that serves three or four. Reservations use the form on the official site, with pickup slots from 11:00 to 19:30.

If the salon is full, use the takeout counter instead. Tokyo sells soft-serve made with cacao, which the Osaka shop does not, plus sundaes that are sold only at the Tokyo takeout counter. The Soft Palet d'Or Blanc tastes clearly of cacao despite its pale colour, the Noir uses a chocolate roasted and blended for the purpose, and Rendez-vous swirls the two together.

The pale soft-serve comes from the brand's other project. In 2019 Saegusa opened Chocolatier Palet d'Or Blanc in Aoyama, which the company calls the world's first bean-to-bar brand for white chocolate, pressing its own cocoa butter from the bean. The house-made white chocolate was featured on TV Asahi's Matsuko and Ariyoshi Karisome Tengoku as one of the most labour-intensive sweets in Japan.

The salon does not take seat reservations, so timing matters. Last orders are 20:30 Monday to Saturday and 19:30 on Sundays and holidays, and from July 1 to October 31 the salon also stops taking orders at 19:30 from Sunday to Thursday. Our verdict: if you have only a few minutes between trains, skip the salon and take a cacao soft-serve from the takeout counter, because the parfait deserves a proper sit-down and the seats are first come, first served.

If you only want boxes and bars, the Ginza shop is another option: 5-7-10 Ginza in the EXITMELSA building, first floor, open 11:00 to 20:00, phone 03-5962-8787. It has no salon, but the boutique sells the same bonbons. Our tip for the bars: the Artisan Tablet Bitter 72% and High Milk 40% are both ¥1,836, a sensible way to taste the Kiyosato roasting before committing to a bonbon box.

The Shin-Marunouchi Building faces the red-brick Marunouchi station building of Tokyo Station, designed by Tatsuno Kingo and restored in 2012, so the first stop after the salon is simply the plaza across the road. From there Gyoko-dori runs west towards the Imperial Palace outer gardens on a flat, wide promenade, an easy way to walk off a parfait. KITTE, the shopping centre in the former Tokyo Central Post Office, is on the south side of the station plaza and makes a good rainy-day alternative.

Address: Shin-Marunouchi Building 1F, 1-5-1 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo. Phone 03-5293-8877. Hours: Monday to Saturday 11:00 to 21:00, last order 20:30; Sundays and holidays 11:00 to 20:00, last order 19:30. Closed January 1 and on days the building closes. Online orders ship by refrigerated courier for an extra ¥1,100, and whole cakes are collection only. Bonbons are sold from one piece, so a single gold disc is an easy way to start.

The brand also takes its chocolates to events. It had a stand at Tokyo Chocolate Salon on October 3 and 4, and pop-ups at department stores, but the Marunouchi shop is the one place in Tokyo with the full salon menu every day. Ask the Karpo APP for directions from your train platform, or for a coffee stop to pair with a box of bonbons.