ANA Intercontinental Champagne Bar

Otherwise known as Death by Chocolate. The Champagne Bar hosts a variety of sweets buffets throughout the year (it's a strawberry buffet from now until the end of May). This time around it was an immense chocolate buffet featuring sweat and savory dishes with dark, milk, white and ruby chocolate. 

The bar itself is small and cozy, and the buffet, laid out in four sections (regular, savories, fountains/bonbons, chilled), was beautifully designed. Everyone wandered around taking pictures before digging in. And what a spread:  cakes, cookies, puddings, tarts, sandwiches and more. I was even more stuffed than after the Hokkaido izakaya, and I was trying to pace myself, since we had 90 minutes. With two exceptions, both orange-chocolate desserts, everything we tried was divine. 

I had not eaten ruby chocolate before this buffet. It seems to fall somewhere between milk and white chocolate in taste and texture, so pleasant, but not something I'd go out of my way for, since I prefer dark, bitter chocolate. And I can't comment on the chilled desserts, as I'd run out of stomach before I got to them.

The one downside to the buffet is the drink menu. Champagne came with the buffet, and it was quite nice and dry, a good balance to the sweet food. But the tea was fairly pedestrian (then again, this wasn't a tea, but a chocolate smorgasboard, so no complaining, really).

A definite thumbs up, and I'd be curious to try the tea shop downstairs, as their chocolate offerings looked amazing too.

Address:  1 Chome-12-33 Akasaka, Minato City, Tokyo 107-0052, Japan
Website:  https://anaintercontinental-tokyo.jp/en/dine/the-champagne-bar/