Sweetheart Cafe Review

Sweetheart Cafe is a bakery and counter service restaurant in World Bazaar at Tokyo Disneyland. While you’ll mostly find baked goods and sweet (hence the name) treats here, there are a few savory options as well if you’re so inclined to parlay the experience into a full meal. This review features food photos, thoughts on the bakery, and how this might fit into a day at Tokyo Disneyland.

One thing to note at the outset is that Sweetheart Cafe did not make our Top 10 Counter Service Restaurants at Tokyo Disneyland list. So you might be thinking that, since you aren’t going to spend 5 days in Tokyo Disneyland (and if you do, mad props), it’s an option you should write off.

I wouldn’t be so quick to assume that. The two big strengths of Sweetheart Cafe are location and convenience. In tandem, this makes it a great spot to grab a bunch of different snacks while the rest of your party camps out, waiting for the daytime parade, Dreamlights, Once Upon a Time, or whatever new show is occurring during your visit.

We have done this more than a few times to great success. For families (or larger parties) it’s a great option because the different snacks are usually inexpensive, so you can just grab a mix of them without having every person in your party consult a menu and hand the runner in your party a lengthy order. There will be something for everyone. (We also do this with the pizzas at Pan Galactic Pizza Port; it’s a better option for this, but it’s farther away from the Hub.)

With that said, let’s take a look at what to expect from Sweetheart Cafe at Tokyo Disneyland…

The setup inside is cafeteria line in style, and it’s one of the most efficient restaurants at Tokyo Disneyland. Most of the items are breads and pastries sitting out for you to grab with tons.

It doesn’t take much time to grab what you want and go…unless you have to mull over which options are the cutest and most photogenic.

Above is Mickey Hamburger Bread. This is about the size of a fist, and cost ~$3. This might sound and look gross, but it’s a ‘don’t know it until you’ve tried it’ type of thing. Or maybe I just enjoy gross food.

Here’s a piece of rice bread (~$2). Like many of the flavored breads here, this provides a bit of stomach-filler, but isn’t exactly bursting with flavor.

The various items rotate out pretty regularly, so what you see here might not be what Sweetheart Cafe is serving during your visit. About the only thing we’ve seen on every visit is Mike Wazowski Melon Bread. (It’s not as good as it sounds.)

Pictured above is a different Mike Wazowski dessert. They always have a couple of items themed to him here, for some reason. (Proximity to Monsters, Inc. Ride & Go Seek…?)

Another mainstay of the menu at Sweetheart Cafe is the pastrami and egg salad sandwich. At $4, this offers good value for money, but I’m not so sure about mixing pastrami and egg salad.

Typically, there’s at least one additional seasonal sandwich (for Christmas it’s currently a ham and potato salad sandwich with raspberry sauce & grape jelly, and no I did not just make that up) on the menu. These are usually equally bizarre mashups of ingredients.

This is not what I had in mind when I said there’s “something for everyone” at Sweetheart Cafe…

Okay, so we probably haven’t “sold” any of you on Sweetheart Cafe with this review. For whatever reason, we only seem to have photos of the more bizarre offerings here (probably because we skew towards trying and photographing those), but there are actually a number of mundane options in the $2-3 range that are going to be crowd-pleasers. Things like danishes, curry bread, meat pies (another ‘don’t knock it until you try it’ item), muffins, pies, etc. We end up stopping here as a matter of convenience about once per trip now, but we wouldn’t recommend any first-time visitors to Japan seek out Sweetheart Cafe. It’s a nice option if you’re in a hurry, in between meals, or awaiting a parade, but it doesn’t warrant a special visit.

If you’re thinking of visiting Japan for the first time and are overwhelmed with planning, definitely check out our Tokyo Disney Resort Planning Guide. It covers much more than the parks, from getting there to WiFi to currency and much, much more. For more photos and an idea of what we did day-by-day during our first visit, read our Tokyo Disney Resort Trip Report. If you have any thoughts on or questions about Sweetheart Cafe (or anything else Japan-related), please share in the comments!