AMAM DACOTAN is a bakery from Fukuoka that pioneered the nationwide Maritotsuzzo boom. It has also opened a store in Tokyo, as well as a sister store “DACOMECCA,” another brand “dacō? and another brand “I’m donut? a specialty store for fresh doughnuts, and others. All of them draw huge lines every day for their creative baked goods! What is the secret of their popularity?
Creating stores that create “excitement” with delicious breads
Amamudakotan is located in Ropponmatsu, a little away from downtown Fukuoka City. Stepping into the shop, you will feel as if you are visiting a fantasy world in the stylish space with antique furniture and a lot of dried flowers hanging from the ceiling. The aroma of freshly baked bread fills the air, and it is a blissful moment when you are tempted to buy one thing or another! Six years after its opening, the store is still very popular, with a long line of customers waiting in line even before the store opens.
Starting from a small pasta store of 7 tatami mats
Ryota Hirako, the representative of Amamudakotan, was not originally a baker, but a chef trained in Italian cuisine for about 10 years. After becoming independent, he opened the pasta specialty restaurant “Hiraconche” in Hirao in 2012. It was a small restaurant of about 7 tatami mats where I was the only cook,” recalls Hirako. After the store flourished, it moved to a larger location in Kego, where it opened a café-restaurant on the first floor and a dried flower store on the second floor.
Bread and dried flowers is an unexpected combination. I have always loved antiques, so I wanted to open a dried flower store as well,” says Hirako. The café-restaurant has gained a reputation for the beautiful visual of fresh flowers hanging from the ceiling before they are dried. He also painted the walls and floors himself, creating a unique space that has become the cornerstone of the restaurant’s current design.
Dough from “Breadstock
Mr. Hirako says he has always loved bread. He says, “Like myself, I think that people who say they like bread like not only the bread itself, but also the excitement of going to a bakery and choosing bread. Six or seven years ago, however, most bakeries offered only a few items. The only bakery that satisfied his desire to go to a bakery was “Breadstock” in Higashi Ward, Fukuoka City. Hirako fell in love not only with the wide selection of items, but also with the flavor of the dough. While he insisted on making everything by hand at his restaurant, he began to want to make his own bread, which was the only bread he purchased. Hirako learned to make dough at “bread stock,” which she was fascinated by, and opened the bakery “Amamudakotan” in Ropponmatsu in 2018.
From a chef’s point of view, he develops breads with a free spirit.
The “breadstock” dough, made from domestic wheat and aged for about 15 hours, is characterized by its crispy texture and rich moisture. The breads at Amamudakotan, such as sandwiches filled to overflowing with ingredients and hot dogs topped with homemade sausages, are both hearty and photogenic, and have captured the hearts of customers.
Bakers want people to taste the dough itself, so they tend to keep the ingredients in their bread simple,” says Hirako. When I go to a bakery, I think of bread as an ingredient, as a cook, and I feel like I’m visiting a produce or butcher store (laughs). (Laughs). “I always look at the bread while thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it taste better if I did this? As she looked at the bread, she realized that the best balance was to enhance both the ingredients and the bread, rather than focusing on one or the other, and this led her to her current voluminous style.
Hirako’s goal is to create bread with a sense of unity, where the ingredients are delicious, the dough is crisp, and everything enhances each other. Many people come from far and wide to enjoy the bread made from the chef’s point of view, with the flavor of the ingredients as the main ingredient and the texture of the bread as the supporting dish.
Every time a new product is released, it attracts attention, such as the “maritozzo,” a local Italian pastry that has made “Amamudakotan” a nationally popular restaurant on SNS.
Deep-fried brioche dough, a new kind of doughnut
One of the hottest items on the market today is a “raw doughnut” made by deep frying brioche dough. One day, Mr. Hirako was working on a prototype of a new product in preparation for the opening of “Dakomecca,” a sister store of “Amamudakotan. I especially like the brioche dough from ‘breadstock,’ and I was always looking for possibilities outside of bread,” he said. When he tried frying the dough, he was shocked by the texture, which melted in his mouth for the first time. The staff all tasted it together and were very excited. We were so excited,” he smiles. He named the new melt-in-your-mouth texture “raw doughnut,” and opened the raw doughnut specialty store “I’m Doughnut? a store specializing in raw doughnuts, in the hope that many people will enjoy them.
He named it “raw doughnut” after the new texture, and opened a shop specializing in raw doughnuts in the hope that many people would enjoy it. However, the soft, melt-in-your-mouth brioche dough from Breadstock is what made it possible for us to achieve this delicious taste. The dough is fried as if it were a fritter, further developing the “breadstock” dough. It is precisely because he is a chef that he continues to create new things from his own perspective.
I want to pursue the fun of creating a restaurant.
Finally, in 2021, he will open his first “Amamudakotan” in Omotesando, Tokyo. We decided to expand into Tokyo because we used to live in Omotesando and love the city, and above all, we wanted to open a store where our staff could see the possibilities for the future. In addition, there are three Dakoh stores under the “Dakoh” brand, six I.M. Doughnuts? has now grown to six stores in Japan and one overseas, bringing the total number of stores in Tokyo alone to 12.
What is even more surprising is that they do not simply open stores in the same format, but rather create a different concept for each store, taking into account the local characteristics of the area. First, Hirako looked at the property and designed the space himself, imagining what kind of interior would be best for this particular location, given the site’s location. He also produced the bread lineup, staff uniforms, background music, and merchandise. For example, the Ochanomizu branch of Dakoh has its first café, and the Shibuya branch of I.M. Doughnuts? The Shibuya store of “I’m Doughnuts?” has 50 different types of doughnuts on display… Although it would be more cost-effective to open stores following the same format, “It is fun to create one store at a time, even if it takes a lot of time and effort,” says Mr. Hirako.
I want people to enjoy going to the bakery.
Mr. Hirako’s extraordinary passion for creating stores stems from his desire for people to “enjoy going to bakeries. This is reflected in every aspect of the bakery, from the bread and space to the customer service of the staff, which continues to impress visitors.
With the increase in the number of stores and more than 100 staff members, my responsibilities have also increased,” says Hirako. But I think the most important thing for the company is to do what I want to do. The staff with long experience in the field has also grown up and has become a great support for Mr. Hirako’s creativity. There are still many things I want to do, so I would like to sort them out (laughs). We can’t take our eyes off Ms. Hirako’s new creations and new stores, which always surprise and thrill us.
