A lifestyle select shop that offers goods unique to Kagawa such as delicious local ingredients, high-quality general goods as and traditionally crafted items, Machi no Schule 963 is located on the 2nd floor of the building complex facing the Marugame shopping street in Takamatsu.

The shop interior is divided into zones such as the café zone, general everyday goods zone, food zone and gallery, among others, and is filled with good taste. If you visit Takamatsu, we highly recommend taking a peek.

Right after entering the shop you can see the foods corner on the lefthand side. It offers a selection of carefully selected, safe, delicious ingredients. The shelves are filled with seasonings, dried goods, jams and other products with special attention paid to showing the faces of the actual producers. Effort has also been put into providing detailed explanation notes to show the stories behind each product, none of which can be found in ordinary supermarkets or souvenir shops.

Below is one of the shops especially popular products. It’s a fresh extra virgin olive oil extracted from olives grown with great care in a garden on Shodoshima Island.

Below are processed goods made using Lollo Rosso, which is a brand of lemon with low chemical content and no wax grown in Mitoyo city in the western part of Kagawa prefecture. Products include salt-marinated and honey-marinated lemons, and every one is packed with the delectable sweet and sour flavour of lemon.

Below is a product made by manually removing the head and guts and then roasting the rare kanetsuki iriko (silver-colored, small dried sardines) caught at the Hiuchi offing of the Seto Inland Sea.

In addition to foods, there are plenty of other Sanuki area products on offer in various corners. It’s fun to go and poke around the big shop. In particular, the gallery at the back is a must-see with its variety of traditional handicraft pieces. In addition to Takamatsu Hariko dolls and lacquerware, the gallery also introduces a wide variety of pieces created by artists living in Kagawa.

Hugely popular with female customers, these Sanuki Kagari Temari balls are made by faithfully recreating traditional techniques from plant dyed cotton thread. With the warmth of handmade products, they seem precious, and as they’re wrapped in soft colors, I’m charmed by their gentle beauty.

The shop also offers a variety of small-sized bonsai at the reasonable prices characteristic of production areas. (Kagawa prefecture produces the most pine bonsai trees in Japan.) In addition to being surprisingly easy to maintain, which apparently makes them especially popular among young female customers at the moment, they’re easy to place around the house.

The café located on the right side of the entrance offers a limited number of lunches, homemade sweets, as well as healthy cuisine made with the Sanuki areas seasonal vegetables. They also offer dishes made using the seasonings and ingredients purchasable from the foods area, so you can have a taste and purchase what you like!

On weekends, the café also has dinnertime service, and in addition to the dishes prepared with time and effort, you can also enjoy homemade natural fruit juices and fruit wines made from the fruit of the trees growing on the terrace.

The “Schule” part of the shop’s name comes from the German word for “school” and “learning”. Apparently, the name was chosen to promote the idea that everyday life is full of things to learn using foods, kitchen utensils, general everyday goods, as well as handicrafts.

The spacious shop also contains a gallery, which holds exhibitions by individual artists as well as groups, and a kitchen studio where cooking classes and workshops are held monthly. The shop constantly offers reliable goods related to everyday life, as well as ideas for enjoying it.

As they have various different suggestions according to the season, you can also enjoy the fun of picking up the latest information by visiting every now and then. More than 70% of the shop’s customers are locals, and it’s no surprise that repeat customers are overwhelmingly numerous. Machi no Schule 963 is a shop filled with charms that makes customers want to visit again and again. The shop is sure to attract even more attention in the future, as well!

Machi no Schule 963
Address: 2nd floor of Takamatsu Marugamemachi Sanbangai East Building,  13-3 Marugame-cho, Takamatsu city, Kagawa prefecture
Tel: 087-800-7888
Open: Shop 11:00-19:30
Café (Mon-Thu) 11:30-18:00 (Last orders at 17:30)
(Fri-Sun) 11:30-22:00 (Last orders at 21:30)
Closed: 3rd Sunday of every month (closed on another day if Sunday is a national holiday)
Access: 15-minutes walk from JR Takamatsu station, 6-minute walk from Kotoden Katahara station

http://www.schule.jp/ (Japanese)

By,
The Setouchi Finder Editors