Harbs is a cake café based in Japan, which has now opened in Chelsea.

Cakes reign supreme at this spot where Japanese flavors are blended with French pastry techniques to create interesting combinations of sweets.

There is a menu of sandwiches that are available at lunch along with a selection of tea and hot drinks. All the ingredients are Japanese so all the desserts have the lightness and fluffiness of Japanese style.

I went into Harbs super excited thinking this spot would perhaps trump Lady M – one of my favorite cake boutiques. However for me Harbs just fails to deliver – at least to my palette. Everything we tried just seemed to miss the mark when it came to flavor.

The cakes are very light and fluffy but I just did not find them tasty and they are really huge (which is very un-Japanese). I also found that everything was overfilled with cream and it took away from the delicacy that I would expect from Japanese confections.

Something is just missing from their desserts – it’s that thing that makes you go “mmmmmm”.

I really hope Harbs does well – they did seem to have a steady flow of mostly young Asian clients and perhaps that will be their niche. However – I wont be going back for sure.

Here is some of what we ate: