Setsugekka Ginza (雪月花 銀座)
⭐⭐⭐⭐
🐂 Niku Kappo 📍 / Ginza
📓 Visits: 3 (2023, 2021x2)
Arriving at the ninth floor of the Gicros Ginza Gems building is a bit like when you enter an airplane (remember those?) and turn left for first class and right for the cheap seats: you turn left for Nikuya Tanaka Ginza and right for Setsugekka Ginza. Both restaurants are owned by Satoru Tanaka and while you'll certainly pay a premium for eating at Nikuya, dining at Setsugekka Ginza is definitely not an economy-class experience.
Nikuya Tanaka Ginza is an interesting case study in Tabelog ratings. The restaurant opened in November 2019 and at one point had a rating of 4.39 which dramatically went right down to 3.38 in the space of a month in 2020 and would take the best part of a year to bounce back. In May 2021 (3.38) there were 10 reviews scoring 5.0, 30 scoring 4.5-4.9, 10 at 4.0-4.4 and just 5 at 3.5 to 3.9.
One of those reviews, scoring 3.7, was in 2021, long after the overall rating went down. Looking at the other four scoring under 4.0 in detail:
An often frustrating feature of Tabelog reviews is that someone will give a restaurant a relatively low score without explaining why. Qualitatively, only one or two of those reviews is actually poor. The comment in the review in May 2020 is "top-notch" yet the reviewer only gives the restaurant 3.5! The precise algorithm is not published but a restaurant's overall score is not just the average score of all the reviews of that restaurant. The total number of reviews, the frequency of reviews and the 'influence' of the reviewer are all taken into account. Nonetheless, I find it quite surprising what an effect a handful of low scores can have. In 2021 Nikuya Tanaka was awarded a Silver Tabelog award and was one of only 12 restaurants selected as 'best new entry'. That seems to be a fairer reflection of all the reviews, but all of this is quite confusing for the diner and must have been frustrating for Tanaka-san. Things have seemed to have finally corrected themselves in June 2021 with the restaurant jumping right back to 4.41 with another 5.0 review, one more at 4.5-4.9 and 3 more ranging 4.0-4.4.
When Nikuya Tanaka Ginza first opened there was a choice of two course menus at 25k and 35k. The 25k course was just 'wagyu' while the 35k course included Kobe beef. Only the latter course is available now and the price has gone up by 3k. I think it's fair to categorize Nikuya Tanaka as washoku that specializes in beef: the meal consists of 11-12 courses and about half feature beef. Setsugekka is proper niku kappo: the course menu is 25K + tax and service, about 14-18 courses are served and around 11-14 contain beef. So if you want to eat more meat, Setsugekka is a better choice and it's 13K cheaper. All the beef is either Tajima Matsuzaka or Kobe, amongst the best available in Japan. Tanaka-san doesn't prepare the dishes at Setsugekka but did make an appearance to say good evening when I went. Wherever you dine, all the beef is selected by Tanaka-san and it's still Tanaka-san's reputation on the line at Setsugekka. There's more on the background on these restaurants on Pocket Concierege (Nikuya and Setsugekka).
The counter at Setsugekka seats 12 and is one of the longest I've ever sat at. There's a great atmosphere in the restaurant. The staff have personality and crack jokes all the time. I believe one of the wait staff may speak some English but the chefs don't. There's no food menu or options here - everyone gets the same food at the same time - and the drinks menu is bilingual so you don't need Japanese to enjoy the food and drink. Speaking of which, drinks can be expensive: bottles of wine are from 19K to 2.8M yen. A glass of champagne is JPY 3,800 (though it was a 2010 Dom Perignon). It also took 10 minutes to get a drink on visit two, I guess because they were serving people in strict order of arrival.
A lot of the Tabelog reviews of Setsugekka say there's too much food and on my first visit everyone was struggling to finish and on my second you could see the food piling up in front of some customers as they couldn't keep up. My advice would be not to eat lunch that day if you go. While not everything is fabulous, some of the beef dishes were the best I've ever eaten. Despite a lot of great reviews the Tabelog rating is still below 3.40 in January 2022. I'm not going to try to explain that one but, again, I'm expecting a big jump at some point.
If you go and you love the curry or you just want to try it separately you can order it online. It's not cheap at JPY 4,240 including tax and shipping for two 200g packs but it is sublime. To save on the shipping fee you can ask, at the restaurant, to take a pack home before you leave.
Setsugekka Ginza is the best niku kappo in Tokyo. If you love beef you must visit.
📅 Visit 3 - April 2023
Most dishes I rated 9-10/10. I loved the reimen this time (10/10) and even the all the horumon (10/10), which is something I thought I'd never say.
Kobe rump tartar, N25 caviar
Kobe consomme
Tajima tongue
Kkakdugi
Salad
Yamagata hire
Kobe sirloin sukiyaki
Kobe hire negima
Fruit tomato
Kobe uchimomo
Kobe ichibo
Reimen
Tajima harami
Liver, hatsu, minnow, shocho
Curry
Anin tofu
Taiwanese oolongcha
💴 Damage: 32,500 (25k + 2 drinks at 1,600 + curry t/a @ 3k + 10%)
⏱️ Time taken: 2h5m
📅 Visit 2 - October 2021
I didn't make what might have been a mistake I made when visiting Jo (review here) for the second time and returned to Setsugekka after seven months rather than two. My second visit was as good as my first. About a third of the dishes were identical and the rest either slightly or substantially different. The dishes that were largely the same were as I remembered them from the time before. The Kobe hire was again one of the best pieces of meat I've ever eaten. The hire negima had been properly seasoned this time and there was (unnecessary) extra salt on the plate (perhaps they read my review and over-compensated :) A new, seasonal, dish of matsutake, sirloin sukiyaki was sublime - 10/10. Not to my taste again was the horumon and as with the oxtail last time the short rib was very rich and really needed rice. Kkakdugi was served this time instead of the (for me, better) tsukemono last time. While writing this review and comparing with last time I note there were four fewer courses second time: no tongue sashimi, no pastilla, no beef sushi and no separate vegetable dish. But it was only until now that I noticed. I'm not sure why this was: it could have been due to the expense of the ingredients on the day or slightly larger portions in some dishes. I don't think it was because of a reduction in volume: subsequent reviews have up to 18 dishes and either way I was extremely full when finished.
Corned beef bruscetta
Consome
Kobe rump sashimi, caviar
Kkakdugi
Kaki salad
Gyutan shioyaki
Hire
Mino
Matsutake, sirloin sukiyaki
Hire negima
Reimen
Misuji
Harami (Yamagata)
Horumon, liver
Curry, rice, miso soup
Melon
💴 Damage: 32,500 (25k + 2 drinks at 1,600 + curry t/a @ 3k + 10%)
⏱️ Time taken: 2h10m
📅 Visit 1 - March 2021
The first dish was beef consomme, one of the best I've ever had and a small, perfectly-sized portion. Next was corned beef served on bruschetta. The corned beef lacked fat for me but it was a tasty couple of bites and complemented the consomme well. Next was beef tartar served with N25 caviar. The next few dishes were a bit hom-hum: tongue sashimi kobujime and mino (tripe) seem to be more about the texture than the flavour. Gyutan was good but I've had better. Things stepped up with sirloin 'shabu' with apple and kumquat sauce. Watercress and strawberry salad was a bit sickly. The next dish was filet of Kobe beef simply grilled. This was some of the best beef I've ever eaten: super soft, perfectly seasoned and juicy. White asparagus was from Loire. The next dish was Kobe 'hire' served on a skewer with negi. The meat was tougher than the sublime filet I had earlier and not seasoned. I'm not sure if they forgot to season it or if it was intended but it ended up being a waste of good meat. Next was a pastilla made from the shin - very rich and delicious. Beef sushi followed - the rice was very sour and made for another excellent dish. Matuszaka oxtail was braised in a very sweet sauce. You really need some rice for this dish to cut through so I asked for a refill of the excellent tsukemono. Reimen was served with a goma sauce and not for me. Next was 3 fat pieces of Kobe liver - the best liver I can remember eating - and following this, Matuszaka harami. Delicious, but the Kobe filet was a hard act to follow. The shokuji was served with beef curry. This was hands down the best beef curry I've ever had in Japan. Super rich, deep beef flavour, perfect spicing and plenty of beef. I was really full at this point but I made room for that curry. 'Dessert' was freshly squeezed juice. Not much of a dessert but you really didn't need anything else after such a rich meal. A Tabelog review taken in the same month I went is representative of what I ate but not exactly the same.
Consomme
Corned beef bruscetta
Beef tartar, caviar
Tsukemono
Tongue sashimi kobujime
Mino, ponzu
Gyutan
Sirloin 'shabu', apple kumquat sauce
Watercress, strawberry salad
Kobe hire
White asparagus
Kobe hire negima
Beef pastilla
Beef sushi
Oxtail
Reimen
Kobe liver
Matuszaka harami
Curry, rice, miso soup
Miyazaki juice
💴 Damage: 34,430 (25k + 2 drinks @ 4,600 + water @ 1,700 + 10%)
⏱️ Time taken: 2h15m
📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1301/A130101/13249568/
❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.8
📱 Booking: 🟩 Easy. Book via TableCheck at least a day in advance or by phone for same-day or advance bookings. They don't generally answer the phone until around 3pm.
📍 Location: 9F GICROS GINZA GEMS, 6-4-3 Ginza.
2 mins South-West from the C2 or C3 (Tokyu Plaza Ginza) Exit, Ginza station. 9F multi-tenant building.
Map data ©2021 Google
Love the blog! Such great great content I find all very useful. Do you have an Instagram account I could follow?
ReplyDeleteThanks very much for the feedback! Rarely post to Instagram. The blog is much more up-to-date.
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