Baking vacations attract more Japanese

TOKYO —

In these belt-tightening times, some Japanese are finding ways to have a vacation—and eat it too.

They are spending leisure funds on luxurious cakes and designer kitchenware, for a ‘‘staycation’’ at home with friends instead of an expensive domestic or overseas trip.

One morning at the Daikanyama school in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward of Le Cordon Bleu, a famous cooking and confectionery school headquartered in Paris, six housewives in their 30s and 40s and female office workers were busy making cakes using blackberries and black tea mousse.

The teacher is Yuji Toyonaga, who has spent five years training in France and Belgium. The school opened the ‘‘Sabrina lesson’’ in October last year.

The lesson on this particular day was for fairly experienced people, but even novices can attend it. One French dish or cake is made under the guidance of a professional chef, and students can take the food home. One lesson lasts three hours, and the tuition is 13,000-15,000 yen.

A Tokyo company employee in her 40s whose hobby is to make cakes said, ‘‘I have been away from my hobby for the last 10 years because of a busy schedule but resumed it recently as I can now afford it.’‘

A woman in her 30s said, ‘‘My friends have a party at home by bringing their cakes once every two or three months.’‘

Midori Shinohara, a school official in charge of public relations, said, ‘‘French dishes ordinary families are eating are not so luxurious but they look better at a home party. In seeking a lifestyle like that, course attendants are increasing.’‘

The school says its dishes rank high as compared to those at other cooking schools. Some attendants come all the way from Hokkaido and Kyushu.

The course’s name stems from the 1954 movie ‘‘Sabrina’’ starring Audrey Hepburn who plays a lovelorn American attending a cooking school in Paris.

Some people focus their attention on fairly expensive cooking devices. Isetan Co, a major department store in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward, moved the kitchenware sales counter from the innermost place on the livingware sales floor to its center in February last year.

When the department displayed the French-made colorful pan ‘‘Le Creuset’’ and fashionable equipment with colors painted on the high-temperature resin, annual sales through February this year increased 15 percent over the year before. Since then, the monthly sales have been favorable with an increase of 20 percent over the year earlier.

Masanori Sugihara, of the department’s living business division, said, ‘‘Kitchenware with good interior designs and functionality sells well. Growing numbers of customers now want to turn their kitchens into a place of active communications with their family members and friends rather than to simply eat at home to save money.’’

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