Final Fantasy Eorzea Café in Akihabara is a one of the many themed cafes that Tokyo has to offer, and is a must visit for fans of the Square Enix video games series, or even for curious travellers who just want to admire the level of detail inside the cafe.
From the décor, background music and food, the entire room is themed around Final Fantasy XIV, the famous multiplayer online role-playing game. Eorzea Cafe is modelled after the fictional inn called the 'Carline Canopy', and the name Eorzea comes from the fictional region within the game world.
The interior is decorated with iconic characters such as the moogle and art portraits and replicas of weapons and armor. Fans will feel right at home with the nostalgic atmosphere, indulging in everything the café has to offer, even offering a row of computer where you can play the video game.
The café has English menus available for non-Japanese speakers. Main meals are from ¥550 to ¥1,380, and drinks from ¥550 to ¥750. Over 30 food and 50 drink items are all themed around the video game, with references to monsters and characters, I recommend the chocobo curry in the main meals and for dessert the moogle pancakes. Due to the novelty factor of the cafe my expectations for the food were not high, so I was surprised when it was actually consistent with the pictures in the menu and tasted just as amazing as it looked. Every time you order an item off the menu you are also given a souvenir coaster featuring different characters for you to collect during the session. You are given a time limit of two hours inside the cafe, which was in my experience, plenty of time. I had enough time to try out the one entrée, three drinks, two main meals, and a dessert, with extra time for pictures.
How to get tickets
There are two options: reserve tickets online or visit the location to reserve a time slot for the day. If you reserve tickets online, the website is only available in Japanese. Please note that if you reserve tickets online, you will have to pick them up 3 days later at a Lawson’s in Tokyo. The second option is that you show up to the cafe when it opens on the day and enter the ticket raffle. If you are selected, you can choose a time slot to come back and visit on that day. I chose to show up at the cafe front desk and try my luck. Fortunately I got extremely lucky as they immediately had an available table even though we did not enter the raffle that morning.