Truffle Bakery Osaka Review: Best Salt Bread in Umeda, Osaka, Japan
On this Osaka trip, I stayed around Umeda, and I found out there was a famous bakery nearby that a lot of people rave about.
So of course, I had to go.
This was Truffle Bakery Osaka Main Store, a well-known spot for salt bread in Osaka, Japan.
Basic Info: Truffle Bakery Osaka
The closest subway stop is Nakazakicho Station,
and it’s also about a 10 to 15 minute walk from Umeda Station.
Hours are 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.,
and the bakery is closed every Monday.
Exterior
This is what the outside looks like.
The people sitting out front weren’t actually waiting in line,
they were just hanging out and eating their bread there.
There were plenty of local Japanese customers,
and I noticed especially a lot of Western visitors too.
The whole storefront, from the sign to the overall vibe, was really pretty.
Inside the Bakery
It’s mainly a takeout bakery, so the inside isn’t very big,
but the bread selection is surprisingly wide.
I visited around 3 p.m., and even then
they were still baking fresh bread inside.
The smell of fresh bread drifting through the shop was amazing.
Truffle Bakery Osaka Menu and Bread Selection
Here’s a full look at the bread lineup.
Melon pan 277 yen, cheese Danish 276 yen,
PAMPELDU 430 yen, croissant 359 yen.
Cinnamon sugar roll 398 yen,
almond croissant 430 yen, raisin bread 348 yen,
peach cream cheese bread 298 yen,
and honey gorgonzola bread 598 yen.
White truffle donut 459 yen,
brioche donut 380 yen.
White truffle salt bread 257 yen,
corn bread 319 yen.
Brown rice shokupan milk bread 798 yen.
They also sell it in half and quarter sizes, not just a full loaf.
Half is 399 yen and quarter is 200 yen.
Rye baguette 320 yen.
Cardamom bun 368 yen.
This one is limited to 100 pieces per day.
Mentaiko bread 461 yen,
pain au chocolat 380 yen.
Truffle curry bread 398 yen, hot dog 722 yen,
croque monsieur 398 yen, and red bean butter sandwich 580 yen.
Spinach tartine and mushroom tartine are 369 yen each,
and organic sugar bread is also 369 yen.
They also have Pain de Mie, a soft and moist loaf bread.
Full loaf is 850 yen, half is 425 yen, and quarter is 213 yen.
There were also signs advertising Osaka main store exclusive items,
including a truffle sandwich, donuts, yogurt,
and pound cake.
The pound cakes came in lemon, carrot, and coconut flavors,
and each one was 418 yen.
Black truffle egg sandwich was 498 yen,
and drinkable yogurt was 320 yen.
Truffle Bakery Osaka also sells its own merch, and honestly the logo and design are all so nice that they’d make great gifts.
They also sell drip bag coffee.
This is what we ended up buying.
Three white truffle salt breads,
one corn bread, one melon pan, and one cardamom bun.
Total: 1,875 yen.
With the yen exchange rate up lately,
I basically just added a zero and thought of it as around 18,750 won, or roughly $12 to $13.
Back when the yen was cheaper,
I’m really glad I stocked up on baby supplies in Japan…!
Can You Bring Bread on a Flight from Japan?
Since this was my last stop before leaving Japan,
I didn’t eat the bread right away and just carried it onto the plane in my personal bag.
You can bring bread from Japan on a flight, but items with sausage, meat, or things like mentaiko aren’t allowed. Dry breads can go in either your carry-on or checked luggage. Cream-filled breads are okay too.
I opened everything once I got back home in Korea.
Each piece was wrapped individually in paper packaging.
Truffle Bakery Osaka Review: Best and Worst Breads
Here’s a closer look at each bread I brought home.
First up, Truffle Bakery’s signature item:
White Truffle Salt Bread.
It had this soft, subtle truffle aroma that hit right away.
The outside was crisp and the inside stayed moist,
basically everything you want from a really good salt bread.
If you look at the open ends of the bread, you can see tiny black specks in there, which I’m guessing are truffle bits or truffle powder.
Even when I tore it open in the middle, those black specks ran all the way through.
It was rich, buttery, and really tasty,
though interestingly the truffle flavor wasn’t as strong while eating it
as the aroma made me expect.
Still, that buttery finish with a gentle truffle scent
made this one of the better salt breads I had in Osaka.
Next was the melon pan.
I’d only had convenience store melon pan in Japan before,
and buying one from a proper bakery really did feel different.
The top had that crisp cookie-like crust,
and the sugar on top made it sweet and satisfying.
There wasn’t any filling inside,
and this is definitely something you should eat the same day if you want that crisp-outside, soft-inside texture.
I saved part of it for the next day,
and by then the crust had gone soggy and the inside had dried out.
Still, I’d recommend this one too.
Next up was the corn bread.
It looked really good, but honestly it was just okay.
It was packed generously with corn,
and there was a little bit of cream inside too,
but it wasn’t that the bread tasted bad so much as it barely tasted like anything.
I couldn’t really get much nuttiness from the corn,
and the cream was so subtle I could hardly tell it was there.
Overall it was just very mild, with almost no aroma or punch.
And finally, the cardamom bun.
To be honest, I bought it mostly because I saw it was limited to 100 a day,
not because I actually knew what cardamom tasted like.
And wow, this one was shocking.
Cardamom is a spice that’s used a lot in India and the Middle East,
and the aroma is incredibly distinctive and strong.
I think those black specks inside were the cardamom,
and the scent was so intense that it almost reminded me of cosmetics
or fabric softener.
My husband and I each took one bite
and immediately went, “Nope.”
Without the cardamom, the bread itself probably would have been good,
but the spice was just way too much for us.
There were still a lot of breads I didn’t get to try, but if you go, definitely buy the salt bread.
The melon pan and the fresh donuts are also really popular,
so those are worth trying too.
-The End-