Textura

⭐⭐⭐⭐

🇪🇸🇨🇳 Spanish/Chinese / 📍 Hibiya

📓 Visits: 3

Textura was created by the chef at Ichirin Hanare, though I've never seen him in the Textura kitchen so I guess he's always at Hanare.  There are quite a few options to dine here: a weekday lunch plate at JPY 1,700, courses at JPY 2,500 (weekday lunch only) JPY 5,000, JPY 8,000 and JPY 12,000 and an a-la-carte.  Each time I've been I've had the JPY 8,000 dinner.

The fine dining area of the restaurant is very comfortable - fully-upholstered seating and tables generously-sized with white tablecloths; lighting that creates a sense of intimacy.  The restaurant manager and a couple of the other staff can speak English and menus are available in English, except for the cheapest lunch menu, which won't come as a surprise if you've been in Japan for a while.  The restaurant makes a good location for a date if you were looking to impress a bit more than going to an izakaya.

The restaurant serves Spanish and Szechuan food.  There's a modern, fun and creative element to the food so I actually think it's better to know less rather than more about the structure of the course menu so if you don't want the spoilers skip to the next paragraph.  The course menu alternates between Spanish and Chinese courses and starts with an appetizer.  Next are four dishes using the same spicy dipping sauce as a base: poached chicken, Szechuan pepper noodles, gyoza and finally soy milk to mix with the remainder of the sauce to drink as a soup.  There are then 5-6 more savoury courses, a small, surprise, portion of paella and then dessert and petits fours.  I'm not really a fan of spicy food, particularly Szechuan pepper, and you need to be careful you don't inhale too much of the sauce when you eat those spicy dishes but they are relatively small portions and the quality is very high (particularly the gyoza - packed with fresh meat and a world away from the supermarket variety) so they end up being quite enjoyable.  The paella is to die for.  I get that it's a 'freebie' but the portion is so tiny and it's so good I wish they would offer you a larger portion if you want it.  I must remember to ask for a cheeky refill next time I go :)

My first two meals here were great.  On my first meal the ayu spring roll was the best spring roll I'd ever eaten.  My third meal was not as good as the first two.  Portions seemed to be smaller than I remembered, there was one less course and the crab and sweetcorn spring roll was tasteless.  The best item of the meal was the paella: I could have just eaten a large bowl of that and been happy.

I've included snaps of the menus below.  At JPY 8,000 + tax and no service charge taken this is incredible value for a multicourse dinner of this quality.  Despite my most recent meal not being as good I would still go again because there's more to like than dislike.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1301/A130102/13232958/

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.0

📱 Booking: You will need to book for dinner at least a week in advance for a specific date.  Book by telephone or TableCheck.  Some staff can speak English.

📍 Location: 

1-7-1 Yurakucho.  Opposite the back entrance to the Peninsula, dedicated street-facing entrance.  1 min from Hibiya station Exit A3 or 2 minutes from Yurakucho station Hibiya Exit.

Map data ©2021 Google

📅 Visit August 2020

💴 Damage: 8,000 + 3 drinks @ 2,400 + 10%

Time taken: 2-2.5h

📅 Visit January 2020

💴 Damage: 8,000 + 2 drinks @ 1,800 + 10%

⏱️ Time taken: 2-2.5h

📅 Visit August 2019

💴 Damage: 8,000 + 2 drinks @ 1,700 + 8%

⏱️ Time taken: 2-2.5h