The ‘Established 2000 Tokyo’ at the bottom of Mangosteen’s sign is the first clue that there’s more to Bangalow’s favourite Japanese café than meets the eye. Georgia Fox set off to find out more.
Yuki Yanagi wasn’t sure whether she should start a new business in Australia. She was approaching her 55th birthday, and the world was in its second tumultuous year of the pandemic. But luckily for us, a series of serendipitous factors aligned in such a way that opening a sister café to the one she had started in Tokyo 21 years earlier felt inevitable, she explains.
The roots of the original Mangosteen go back even further, though, to 1996, when Yuki and her longtime collaborator, Daisuke Saito, opened a nightclub called Vitamin-Q in Tokyo’s Nishi-Azabu. With artists such as Boredoms, Hifana, Tadanobu Asano and Tsuyoshi Suzuki regularly performing, it became a mecca for musicians who Yuki describes as being “at the cutting edge of sound.” A new movement emerged, and a strong, tight-knit creative community grew around it.
Yuki discovered dance music while living in London in the early nineties, during her former life as a musician. “At that time I was under contract with a Japanese music company, writing English lyrics and singing,” she explains. “They sent me to London to improve my English… but instead I fell head-over-heels for rave parties,” she laughs. In 1992 she debuted in Japan as part of a new wave band and continued performing live, while also DJ’ing and becoming increasingly involved in Tokyo’s dance party scene. A friend was managing the space in Nishi-Azabu and asked if she and Daisuke would be interested in taking it over.
The club itself was only open for a year, but Vitamin-Q continued to put on dance parties in Tokyo and beyond through the rest of the nineties. The parties grew so large – attracting more than 3,000 people at some – that they eventually had to scale back. “I’m not interested in huge floors,” Yuki says. “I love gatherings where you see everyone’s faces, where everyone can still feel connected.”
In 2000, pregnant with her first daughter, Yuki sought to swap all-night parties for more family-friendly hours. She and Daisuke, along with a group of musicians, DJs and staff they had met through Vitamin-Q, opened Mangosteen in Tokyo’s Nakameguro. “We made everything ourselves,” Yuki explains, “from the interior design to the menus.” Music played a huge part, too, with big-name DJs and musicians dropping by for unscheduled sets. “It was a truly fun space,” Yuki says.
While she had never been to Australia, she had heard about Byron Bay from touring DJs. Seeking a life near the mountains and the sea – and away from the omnipresent threat of Tokyo’s next major earthquake – Yuki left Mangosteen in the hands of her community in 2005 and moved, sight unseen, to Mullumbimby with her husband and her four-year-old and newborn daughters.
Since becoming a mum, she had been less involved in dance parties, but when her spark reignited in 2009, she wasted no time rebooting Vitamin-Q Byron Bay. Before the pandemic put a dampener on things a decade later, Yuki had hosted 21 techno and house dance parties around the Shire, as well as producing ambitious projects both here and back in Japan — including a dance party cymbal performance in the Byron countryside. All juggled with her ‘day job’ as a chef at Mullumbimby’s Izakaya Yū.
She loves bringing Japanese DJs out, not only because of the depth of talent, but to help broaden their opportunities “as a way of giving back for all the magic moments we had in Japan,” Yuki says. She also wanted to offer something different to the dance party community here. “In Europe and Japan, a DJ builds a long set, crafting a ‘journey,’ but here it was more like 10 DJs, each playing only an hour – fast hits, no slow build, no wabi-sabi journey,” she explains.
Which brings us back to 2021, when Yuki received an unexpected offer from Daisuke to help create a Mangosteen in Australia by securing one of the interest-free loans Japanese banks were offering during the pandemic. The original Mangosteen had continued to expand since Yuki left Japan, opening a small izakaya (a Japanese bar with snack food) with a liquor store, as well as a brewery in the town of Hokuto, two hours west of Tokyo.
But where would be the right fit for an Australian Mangosteen? Byron Bay had become too commercial for Yuki, and Mullumbimby already had Izakaya Yū. Bangalow, however, retained its village charm, and she knew exactly the right spot – Corner Kitchen. A couple of weeks after an unsuccessful first approach, Yuki received a call from the owners asking if she was still interested.
When her close friend from Izakaya Yū, Kyōhei Harada, received his permanent residency at the same time, Yuki knew she wanted to create Mangosteen together with him. A talented chef and top-level Brazilian jiu-jitsu coach, Kyōhei is described by Yuki as not only being like a son to her but possessing all the qualities she wanted at the core of Mangosteen. “I deeply trust his passion, his attitude towards life and work, and above all, his honesty,” Yuki says.
Five years in, Mangosteen has received many offers to expand into other locations around the Shire, but Yuki explains her priority is to protect and maintain the taste and quality of what they do at the shop today — while still having time for dancing and surfing. They import and sell Mangosteen Brewery’s award-winning beer from Hokuto, and source the majority of fresh produce from our local farmers’ markets, including all the beautiful flowers Yuki arranges for the café’s tables and counters each week.
Since restrictions were lifted, Yuki has reprised her Vitamin-Q events, bringing big-name Japanese DJs to venues like Haven and Paradiso Music Room. She has also started Musico Bangalow – an experimental space for music and food – with two parties held to date at Common People Brewing, and more in the pipeline.
Thirty years on from beginning this journey, Yuki’s vision and tenacity have created a generational legacy – the children of the original Vitamin-Q and Mangosteen communities embarking on working holidays to Australia, instructed to “go see Yuki!” Yuki’s own daughters, too, are global citizens, having grown up between Japan, Byron and Paris, and now spreading their wings back in Tokyo.
“I can honestly say that I am enjoying both my work and surfing more than ever,” Yuki reflects, as she prepares to celebrate her 60th birthday this year. Chances are she’s going to throw one hell of a party, too.
The dancers amongst us can stay up-to-date with upcoming parties
@vitaminq_byronbay and @mangosteen_bangalow