Ginza Oishi

Ginza Oishi (銀座 大石)

🇫🇷 French / 📍 Ginza

📓 Visits: 1

I haven't been to a restaurant quite like Ginza Oishi before.  Oishi-san calls it "New French".

Oishi-san previously worked at Kitajima Tei until he opened Ginza Oishi in September 2019, his first own restaurant.  Only one course is offered at 24,500 JPY excluding tax and service.  You can only book through Omakase and dinner reservations are quite hard to get.  They do get cancellations and they've started doing a lunch service, where it's easier to get a slot.  None of the staff spoke any English when I went.

All seats are counter and each course is served to all twelve diners at the same time.  The food uses French techniques and seasonings but with Japanese ingredients and is served like a kaiseki course menu (sakizuke, owan, hassun, monaka, yakimono, gohan, mizunono).  No shortage of expensive ingredients are used: my meal included caviar, sea urchin, abalone, cep mushrooms, softshell turtle, botan ebi, foie gras, wagyu and truffle.  The staff take it in turns to announce (at the top of their voice) each course.  Oishi-san is a real extrovert, constantly grinning for customers and posing for pics.  It's definitely a fun restaurant and good if you like a lot of atmosphere.  Everything in the restaurant is brand-new and the kitchen was gleaming.  It's also a very big and rich meal.  There were 13 courses when I went including two meat dishes and two rices.  Being a French restaurant bread is served as well.  You won't leave here feeling hungry.

Unfortunately, the food doesn't live up to the billing.  Everything was lacking any real depth of flavour and there wasn't a single course I really wanted to eat again.  When they asked me at the end of the meal what my favourite dish was I was really struggling to give an answer—it was almost embarrassing.  They also asked me if I wanted to book my next meal there and then—I declined and said I'd use Omakase.

Finally, the meal took over 3 hours.  One party was 30 mins late so they had to slow down the overall service so they could catch up and then it took 20-30 mins to actually leave the restaurant from asking for the bill because the chef insists on taking each party individually down the lift and wishing them farewell—a lovely touch, but very time-consuming, so if you go make sure you ask for your bill when the tea is served, otherwise be prepared to wait.

As it's an open kitchen and a lot of cooking is done on the teppan so expect to have to change all your clothes when you leave.

It's always about the food for me so I haven't returned to Ginza Oishi and don't intend to.  There are far better ways to spend 30K on food in Tokyo.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1301/A130101/13238352/

📱 Booking: 🟧 Difficult.  https://omakase.in/en/r/uq829934

📍 Location: 

2F Maronie dori Ginzakan, 2-10-11 Ginza.  2F multi-tenant building opposite Tenya.  1 min from Higashi-Ginza station Exit A8 or 2 mins from Ginza station Exit A13.

Map data ©2021 Google

📅 Visit November 2019

Kegani, gougere, avocado ice, caviar
Uni, cauliflower, consomme jelly
Botan ebi sushi
Suppon consomme, truffle
Hassun
Foie gras monaka
Cep fry
Unagi, smoked caviar mash
Lamb
Beef
Awabi gohan
Curry
Mont blanc

💴 Damage: 24,500 + 1 drink @ 600 + 10% + 10%

⏱️ Time taken: 3h