Pan-zai! After whipping up a nationwide maritozzo craze in Japan and cloning his Fukuoka bakery twice over, Ryota Hirako is bringing his pillowy pan (Japanese for bread) to the land of the crusty baguette. Artfully tiered beneath a display of dried flowers, the individual buns fall into two camps: savory souzai-pan packed with meat, fish or sautéed mushrooms, and sweet kashi-pan filled with sweet bean paste, airy whipped cream or a precision-cut slab of butter… And that’s not the half-loaf of it: shokupan, brioches, plump nama donuts and crusty quignon fruit-and-nut rolls to round out one seriously well-bread tour of the archipelago! · Bouyaya Kitori

Shopping list: A mentai-France (€5.50), a sort of half-baguette slathered with butter-whipped mentaiko – chili-marinated pollack roe that’s a local specialty in Hakata; and a sensual brioche overflowing with shiroan (white bean paste) and crème diplomate (€4).