Oh my God, the Butlers!
February 15, 2025.
On the day of our arrival, while literally everything was going wrong and out of our control, one thing did go right. Koinuko managed to snag us a reservation at Swallowtail Butler Cafe for the 15th. As lovers of butlers, this was a dream activity for both of us.
Our reservation was for around 1pm, so to kill time beforehand we headed to Sunshine City. Sunshine City is a pretty famous mall that hosts a lot of really cool stores such as the Sylvanian Families store and a One Piece store. The Pokemon store was huuuuge but sadly neither of us are very into Pokemon. I did however thoroughly enjoy the Sylvanian Families store. It was so cool to see all of the families and sets in person!! Sadly I don't have much room at home for such toys. But I had to get at least one so I got the classic Freya Chocolate bunny. I also got my first look at the then ongoing Ojamajo Doremi merchandise line at Kiddyland! I picked up one of th transformation necklaces, it's so dainty.
Swallowtail was definitely a once in a lifetime experience. The vibes were immaculate. When you go down the stairs, you're greeted by a doorman who checks your reservation and then sits you down on a cute little bench in a waiting area with a heater. Once it's time, the doors are opened by your personal butler as well as a few others. You're introduced and taken to your table where your bags are taken and the butler even pulls out your chair for you and places a napkin on your lap! The whole experience made me feel like an absolute princess. The atmosphere is extraordinary. Beautiful hutch dressers filled with tea sets and crystal decanters on all of the walls. It really did feel like I was in a grand English manor.
The food was also amazing. The best afternoon tea set I've ever had (and as a lolita, I've had a lot of afternoon and high tea sets). I also got a lovely pot of blueberry tea. We got an entire hour in there to sit, chat and eat. Our butler chatted to Koinuko in Japanese and even tried to talk to me a little bit in English which was extremely sweet of him!! I highly recommend visiting Swallowtail if you can get a reservation, if only for the food.
Something to keep in mind if you're looking to book a seat at Swallowtail is that reservations only open 10 days before the day of the reservation. The slots also get filled up very quickly. It's a good idea to keep an eye on the reservations in the days coming up to your pilgrimage to avoid missing out. The butlers will do their best to accommodate non-Japanese speakers, but your experience will be greatly improved if a member of your partly can speak a little.
Once we got out of Swallowtail we kind of just stood around fangirling for a bit. I mean what else can you do after an experience like that??? It was so good!! After composing ourselves we popped into the Swallowtail gift shop across the road which sells cookies, teas, merchandise and even CDs of their idol group!!
After picking up a few goodies. Well. We were smack bang in the middle of Otome Road and the BL doujin KBooks is directly above Swallowtail. So we did what was natural and spent the rest of our day popping into second hand book stores!!! We didn't actually realise when we were in town the previous day that the Yaoi Dungeon and various BL doujin stores are right by Swallowtail. But I suppose that makes sense, who else is going to a butler cafe but the humble fujoshi? Koinuko helped me find the BL game section in every doujin store for the entire trip and helped me find several BL game doujin, but the first one I picked up on this day was one for Slow Damage by one of my favourite Fujitowa artists!
On our way home we tried to locate a Daiso to pick up some stuff and got extremely lost. But that was ok because we came across a Rose of Versailles pop up! The merch stall was closed by the time we got there, but the standee was soo cute!
psst!! The background image for this page was the background for the Swallowtail website during the 2010s!
