Cuisine: French
Michelin Stars: 2
Location: Japan, Tokyo, Minato, Roppongi, 3 Chome−1−1
Telephone Number: +81 3-5549-4562
Website: www.koji-shimomura.jp/
Date Visited: Lunch on Weekday
In the past few years, our experiences dining at European restaurants in Tokyo have been mind-blowingly, unexpectedly, amazing. L’atelier de Robuchon (in Ebisu Garden) has always been a favorite of ours and is a must-go every time we are in Tokyo. Unfortunately, they were fully booked this time, so we decided to try our luck at Edition since it was another well-known French restaurant. Although we made a reservation pretty late, we were lucky enough to get the last table. We had only saw online that it was a famous restaurant and didn’t really research much about it before going.
Coming into this restaurant, since it is located in a commercial building, we expected it to be filled with businessmen/businesswomen (or what we call OL in Hong Kong), but were surprised to see that there was a vast variety of people and wasn’t just an office lunch restaurant.
By looking at the name of the restaurant, we knew that it was a Japanese chef, and expected that he would want to bring a taste of home to this restaurant. We found ourselves to be right, and the dishes that were presented showed to be Japanese inspired but prepared in a French way.
When our bread came, we were disappointed at the absence of butter on our table and asked the waiter for some. He looked surprised and we didn’t understand why a French restaurant would fail to serve butter. However, while waiting for our appetizers to come, we were researching a bit about this restaurant and realized that the chef, Koji Shimomura, didn’t believe in using typical French fats , specifically butter. As a person who loves to cook, I have looked into French cuisine a lot, and can understand how difficult it is to prepare French food without the use of butter. I was very impressed and was even more looking forward to how the chef would prepare this meal.
As usual, we asked for the chef’s menu and realized that it was the same as the chef’s menu for dinner. We found this quite surprising because lunch is typically a lighter meal than dinner, but were glad because we were starving and were excited to try the best of what Shimomura had to offer. The menu included 6 courses, and 2 amuse bouches.
The first amuse buche was kind of like a parma ham burger. It was a thin slice of cucumber rolled up inside the parma ham, sandwiched in a mini roll. It was okay but the roll was quite dense, and wasn’t that special. 6.5/10
Next up was a tuna with smoked duck breast. To us, it tasted more like just a tuna tartare because we couldn’t taste the smoked duck breast, but was decent. 7.5/10
Because we both love oysters, this next dish was a highly anticipated dish. It was poached oysters with sea water and citrus jelly with seaweed. We usually just have our oysters fresh from the shell, so this was the fanciest oyster dish we have had and it surprisingly worked pretty well. The oyster was not fully cooked, which allowed it to keep its creamy texture. The citrus jelly was very pleasantly refreshing and while being a perfect pairing for the oyster, was also very appetizing. The cherry on top was the crispy seaweed, which gave it a nice texture contrast and also interesting flavors. It was an interesting play on a classic oyster while keeping its core flavor components of the sea water and citrus. 8.5/10
The next foie gras dish wasn’t very visually pleasing and wasn’t all that tasty either. It wasn’t special and the sear on the bottom side of the foie gras was nonexistent. The pairing of the dish with a lentil puree and girolle mushrooms, in my opinion, was tasty but didn’t help the heavy foie gras and didn't look very appealing. We would have preferred something more sweet or acidic to cut through that creaminess. 7/10
This next dish was another perfect example of East meets West and also hands down our favorite dish of the night. It was a crispy john dory fish and lobster with broccoli puree and lemon jam. We were initially expecting a tempura or a cutlet fish and lobster, but were pleasantly surprised at the technique on the deep fry. The crispy coating on the exterior of the seafood is called kadaif. It is traditionally used for sweets in the Middle East but is a very popular savory Asian deep fry technique. It went really well with the seafood because while allowing them to be crispy, it was also very light and not overpowering. I was also hesitant about the lemon jam at first because I wasn’t sure how well it would pair with the broccoli puree and the seafood. However, I was very impressed and surprised with how well the flavors worked together. In general just a really well thought out and delicious dish, definitely worth a try. 10/10
The main course of the night was also quite good. The sear on the challans duck breast was perfect. The chef rendered almost all of the fat off of the skin, leaving with a pleasant crispy skin without all the excessive fat. Although the duck was very good, the vegetables on the side weren’t quite our favorite. The pickled onions were nice, but the little vegetable pouch was not to our liking because it was bitter and not quite pleasant to our palette. The sweet, almost teriyaki, sauce was a good pairing for the duck and saved the bitterness of the vegetables. 8.5/10
The dessert was literally like a chocolate party in our mouths. It was many variations of chocolate, which is usually very heavy, but it was so good that we all finished it. There was a chocolate ganache, chocolate sorbet, chocolate cracker, chocolate crumbs, and finally, also chocolate water. There was also olive oil at the bottom of the dish, which was a first for me, seeing chocolate and olive oil together, but was surprisingly tasty and worked. The salt on the chocolate ganache also helped cut through the heavy chocolate. The chocolate water was served in a glass on the side, and was interesting but didn't add much to the dish. 8.5/10
We were already very impressed with the first dessert, but the second dessert was even more impressive. Although more simple, the flavors just worked really well on our palettes. It was a creme caramel with a thin layer of espresso and condensed milk on top. Getting a layer of all three flavors was so good it’s indescribable. The stand that it came in was also very artistic and modern, which we later found out to actually be a creation from Shimomura himself. 9/10
Speaking of table designs, there was a tree twisted out of wires on each table, which was very creative and interesting. We found out from the waiter that it was actually ordered especially from Copenhagen after a visit there by Shimomura. We could see how much thought Shimomura put into the interior design and decor of the restaurant.
Price Value:
Number of diners: 4
Total price (JPY): 48,000
Price per head:
JPY: 12,000
HKD: $900
USD: $120
Taste:
Almost all of the dishes were well prepared, and while creative, also worked very well. There were lots of unexpected flavors that surprisingly complimented each other and were very pleasing on our palette. Especially the crispy john dory and lobster dish, which was just awesome. Yes, awesome.
13/15
Service:
There were around 5-6 waiters for the whole restaurant, which is sufficient for its size, but 2 of them didn’t quite know what they were doing and couldn’t understand English, so we assumed they were possibly trainees. However, the other few were very professional, helpful and fluent in English.
8.5/10
Atmosphere:
The decor was artistic and modern, as we mentioned before, and the restaurant was comfortable but could have been more spacious.
8.5/10
Presentation:
Most of the dishes were visually appealing and not overly complicated but wasn’t super impressive.
8.5/10
Technique:
We appreciated the use of Asian techniques as well as Western. It was also very impressive to avoid the use of butter in the dishes (which would explain the main use of jams and jellies for sauces).
4.5/5
Total Score: 43/50
Fuchelin: Solid 2 stars
Final Remarks:
We felt that this restaurant deserved the two stars that it had and we were very impressed. Although classified as French cuisine, we think that it could be classified as more contemporary, fusion Japanese French. Although the absence of butter in the dishes may seem as a hindrance to preparing top quality dishes, we felt as though Shimomura’s persistence allowed him to explore this cuisine to a further level. The use of jellies and jams instead of sauces was very intriguing and unique. We haven’t seen this technique in many other French restaurants, in fact we have never dined at a French restaurant that insists on avoiding the use of butter.
It was also very cute to see that Shimomura was not only involved with the food aspect of his restaurant, but also the decor aspect. It is a very good alternative to L’atelier de Robuchon and is definitely a restaurant we will come back to again.