A backstreet café

Somewhere very close to you right now there's a wonderful little cafe, and the odds are good you can't see it. That's not a problem to solve — it's the skill this stop is going to teach you.

The front of Harajuku does coffee the loud way: queues, big signs, snaking lines for the photogenic cup. The back does it differently. Here the best rooms are hidden — up a narrow staircase to a second floor, or tucked at the end of a lane behind an unmarked door, with maybe one small sign and a single window glowing above the street. Specialty coffee, slow mornings, a handful of seats, a place the neighborhood keeps for itself.

So instead of a name, let me give you a way of seeing. Look up — a lot of these cafes are a floor above street level, and you'd never know from the sidewalk. Look down the lanes, not just along them. Watch for a stack of roasted beans in a window, a hand-lettered board, a doorway that someone clearly loves. The reward for reading the street this way is a seat in the real Harajuku, among the designers and vintage hunters actually having their afternoon.

A small heads-up: because so many of these rooms are up a flight of stairs, they aren't all easy to reach if steps are difficult — something to keep in mind as you choose.

Rest your feet, then carry the appetite forward. From a cup to a plate: just along the lane is where the locals come to actually eat — a backstreet kitchen.