Many-a-foodie have fallen victim to the soft and sweet delishness of the cream puff. Sweet balls of dough filled to the brim with silky smooth custard is enough to drive anyone with a sweet tooth mad with hungerlust.

In Japan cream puffs are more widely known as シュークリーム (Shoe Cream). The funny name actually owes its existence to a rendition of what the French call the tasty treats – Choux à la crème.
Cream puffs are usually round in shape and made from a soft puff pastry. At Shizuoka’s Atami Square things are different; the shell is made from a cake like pastry and they all come in perfectly proportioned cubes.

Atami Square first opened in 2019 after a group of people expressed their wishes to run a small luxury souvenir store in Atami. The store uses locally sourced seasonal ingredients, and aims at distributing the charm and flavour of Atami’s four seasons through their cream puffs.
Square cream puffs are a rarity in Japan, so it comes as no surprise that the ones made at Atami Square are popular amongst both local residents and tourists. The store claims to sell more than 1,000 pieces each day and often has a long queue of people lined up outside eager to have a bite of one of the heavenly squares.

If you want to try Atami Square’s unique cream puffs, but you don’t feel like waiting in their infamous queue or you don’t live in the Atami area, then there is good news; the square cream puffs are now available for mail-order.

The boxes are being sold at 1,500 yen each and come in sets of four available in 3 flavours; Custard, Matcha and Mugikogashi (crispy barley).
If you are feeling brave and can’t decide on which to choose you can even get a box of mixed flavours. The mixed box contains 2 custard flavoured cream puffs, 1 matcha and 1 mugikogashi.

The store’s most popular item is the custard flavoured cream puff. Using milk from the local Tanna area, the custard cream puff is both mellow and nostalgic in flavour, making it easily likeable by people of all ages.
The matcha flavoured cream puff is filled with a smooth mixture of high quality matcha powder and green tea from Shizuoka. The resulting filling is stereotypically rich with all the bitter and sweetness of Japanese matcha.
Atami Square’s least popular cream puff that deserves more attention is their mugikogashi flavoured cream puff. The silky inner paste is made from locally farmed barley wheat – a well-known feature of summer in Atami, this wheat is used as a lucky charm during the Kinomiya Shrine Festival.

Atami Square offers their full menu (for all you health gurus out there, they even state the caloric information of each cream puff) on their official website. For now only the custard, matcha and mugikogashi flavours are being sold online, so if you want to try the strawberry or salted caramel flavours you will have to head over to the store.
To buy a box of Atami Square’s special square cream puffs head over to their online store.