Tea is served, ma'am
Customers who step into the new Swallowtail cafe in Tokyo's Ikebukuro district quickly feel as if they're in a mansion of their dreams. At the door, a great-looking butler in tails intones deferentially: 'Welcome back home mademoiselle' - almost all the customers are women.
Then they are led into what feels like an English manor house. A red-carpeted, chandelier-lit hallway leads to a gorgeous tea room, where their elegant table awaits. A uniformed footman then presents a British afternoon tea, with a wide selection of cream cakes and sandwiches. It's enough to make you feel like an aristocrat - which of course is the whole idea. After 80 minutes, the butler re-emerges to remind you it's time for a 'horse ride' - a discreet reminder that your allotted time has ended.
This soothing scene is repeated every day at Swallowtail, where almost every elegant table is booked solid for the next two months. This tea house is a woman's answer to the popular 'maid cafes' for geeky men that have sprung up since last year in the nerdy electronics district of Akihabara. There, waitresses in maid costumes speak and act in caricatures of submissiveness.
Perhaps it was inevitable that women would want a similar venue for themselves. Only four months ago, Swallowtail was merely an idea in the mind of a female office worker at a Tokyo consulting firm. 'Ms Koike' - the only name she will give out - tentatively suggested the idea on the internet, and received a flood of supportive replies from Japanese women - teenagers and senior citizens alike. She launched her blog - Butler Cafe Strategic Headquarters - in October, and it flowered into a business plan thanks to tips from dozens of cyberspace contributors.
Ms Koike began recruiting butler candidates, and received more than 100 applications. In March, a comic-book publisher volunteered to sponsor Japan's first 'butler cafe'. The tea room made a big splash in the media when it opened, and women rushed to make reservations - even some who lived hours from Tokyo. Now it has its own fan-club website.
The cafe's extraordinary popularity has interesting implications. For one, it shows a craving among Japanese women for the temporary fun of the theatrical nature of the experience. There is nothing erotic or pretentious about it, as in some 'host clubs'.
I think at core, these women may be seeking the sort of decent, civilised treatment from men that they associate with the iconic British gentleman. This is a market still largely unexplored, and seems to offer a good business for anyone who can offer attractive services to well-to-do clients who dream of something better in life.
