Born into a family of bakers with more than 100 years of history in Japan, Hironori Takahashi has considered himself an evangelist of traditional Japanese bread, filled with such ingredients as red bean paste, curry and custard cream.
Even so, it was a challenge, to say the least, for Takahashi — said to be the only Japanese owner of a bakery in Switzerland — to promote soft and fluffy Japanese bread in the country, where people mostly eat bread with thick crusts and often use it to scoop up soups or sauces.
But with the help of the popular cartoon "Yakitate!! (freshly baked) Ja-pan," the story of a fiery Japanese baker seeking to make the ultimate bread, Takahashi's shop in the suburbs of Zurich now has as many local Swiss customers as Japanese expatriates.