Alice in Magical Land is an Alice in Wonderland themed cafe in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Located just a few minutes from the west exit of Shinjuku Station, it’s on the basement floor of the HALC shopping center.
It was a large group of us (5 moms, 5 babies, and two other adults) so we called ahead to make reservations. Although there are many Alice cafes in Tokyo, we chose this one since it is open for lunch. Many of the others open at 5 pm and aren’t necessarily baby friendly.
The one thing that wasn’t baby friendly was the amount of stairs we had to walk down with the kiddos! Luckily, we only had two strollers in the group and the rest of us had our little ones in carriers. We tag teamed those two strollers and carried them down three (four?) flights of stairs.
Plastic Food?!
Japan is famous worldwide for its plastic food displays outside of restaurants. Display cases filled with exact plastic replicas of menu items help potential customers decide whether they want to eat there or not! There’s even an entire street in Asakusa dedicated to selling these plastic food samples.
We were filled with excitement as soon as we spotted the giant storybook door to the Alice cafe! The door slid open, revealing more huge storybooks stacked on top of each other. Let’s take a trip down the rabbit hole.
Passing a row of booths that are made to look like the hedge maze Alice wanders through, our hostess led us to our table. Mirrors on the wall reflect the maze back and forth, making the space look much larger than it is. A game of hedgehog croquet, anyone?
Our Dining Space
Since there were twelve of us, we were seated in a semi-private room. A chandelier of playing cards hung above our heads and this room was clearly part of the Queen of Hearts’ domain. The table itself was a giant playing card, and card prints covered the walls around us.
There was another table on the other side of the room with a group of moms and kids as well, so it wasn’t 100% our own room. It was still nice being set apart from the rest of the restaurant and being able to nurse our babies in our (relatively) private room. However, there were no highchairs at the restaurant so all the babies had to sit on our laps as we ate.
Photo Ops Everywhere!
Although we weren’t able to choose where to sit, the staff didn’t mind letting us wander around to different areas of the Alice cafe to take pictures. There were bunny ears and even the Mad Hatters hat available for us to wear for pictures.
Let’s eat!
The menu was reasonably priced and the food was super kawaii! I ordered the White Rabbit pasta, which came with a side salad, soup and bread. One thing I love about Japan is that most restaurants have seasonal menus that change regularly. Even if you frequent the same restaurant, you can usually find something new on the menu.
One thing that did throw me off was when we told the waitress it was my friend’s birthday and asked what they could do, she just put a candle in her dessert and brought it to us. However, we observed another guest being sung happy birthday to by a group of waitresses. Maybe it’s because we’re gaijin (foreign) or maybe she just wasn’t comfortable singing in Japanese to us. Either way, it made us feel a little left out.
I don’t have anything else to compare it to since this was my first experience at a themed cafe, but I’d say it’s worth a trip! My curiosity has definitely been sparked now and I’ve started a bucket list of all the cafes I want to visit.
All in all, it was a positive experience at Alice in Magical Land. There were lots of great photo opportunities, they were accommodating for a large group (that included 5 babies!), and the portion size and pricing on the menu was decent. This Alice cafe was a ton of fun and I’m so glad we decided to make the trip!
