Tacubo

⭐⭐⭐

🇮🇹 Italian / 📍 Daikanyama

📓 Visits: 1

Betsuni (nothing special).  Is how I'd sum up Tacubo.  A trusted foodie friend of mine told me a while ago that Tacubo was nothing special.  But it's held a Michelin Star since 2017, the Tabelog rating just goes up and up and seats are very difficult to get.

It's 13 courses for JPY 15,000 plus tax and service.  There are 8 counter seats and a couple of private rooms.  The start time was staggered amongst parties but up to and including the main course I was served at the same time as another party of three.  There are quite a few chefs in the kitchen and the owner/head chef completely delegates a lot of the cooking to the sous chefs.  No English is spoken.  It helps if you can speak some Japanese as the staff will ask you a few questions about your preferences.  Most or all diners seemed to be regulars and chef was chatting all night to one group.  The chef at my end of the counter did engage with me.  There's a large wood-fired oven in the kitchen so unless you're in the private room, you'll be wanting to wash all your clothes and your hair when you leave the restaurant.  Your coat can be kept in a cupboard so you don't have to worry about dry-cleaning that.

Things got off to a good start with a few green olives macerated in olive oil - some of the best I've ever eaten and bursting with flavour.  Next was mozzarella, tomato aspic and nasturtium leaf.  The mozzarella wasn't creamy and I couldn't taste any tomato.  Next starter was horse meat tartar with hazelnuts, fukinoto and mayonnaise in a sable pastry case.  The pastry was the best part.  Things improved again slightly with squid with salsa verde but this was an otherwise forgettable dish.  Anago 'frit' was served next with coriander.  This fitted the rule that anything and everything deep fried is good.  It was a generous piece of anago but nowhere near as good as anago in a good tempura restaurant and the coriander did nothing for me.  Next was lettuce gratin.  This was the savoury dish of the night, full of umami and a great winter warmer.  Next was pasta with broccoli and karasumi.  The pasta tasted a bit doughy to me - I don't know whether or not that was what they were aiming for but I didn't enjoy it.  The main dish was Kagoshima sirloin steak served with section of carrot.  The beef was very good and cooked very well with a good char from the wood-fired oven.  You could pay a lot more at a restaurant that specialises in beef and have inferior steak.  The carrot had apparently been cooked for two hours but didn't taste special - my carrots are better.  Next was a palette-cleansing course of a hunk of lettuce served with house-made dressing.  Nice, but just lettuce.  The final savoury dish was spaghetti bolognese.  This was a light version of bolognese - no rich red-wine ragu.  I forgot to ask if the first pasta dish was in-house made pasta (I assume it was).  The spaghetti was from a packet.  Another palate-cleansing dish of fresh orange and grapefruit with lemongrass granita followed.  At this point I was getting pretty full and slowing down but I wasn't done yet.  The main dessert was a milk gelato topped with pistachios.  This was one of the best milk ice creams I've ever eaten: a proper milk ice and not a cold 'nama cream': sweet but not too sweet, rich but not too rich, super cold, perfectly silky-smooth and a large portion.  Hand-dripped coffee and a financier closed out the meal.  Only one piece of bread was served.  This was rosemary and potato 'focaccia'.  This wasn't focaccia.  It had a strange texture like moichi so not particularly good.  The focaccia at Kasai is way better.  The food pictured in a Tabelog review of the winter course is identical to what I had.

Drink options were poor: there was a very poor choice of non-alcoholic drinks.  If you don't drink wine or beer there are very few other alcoholic options.  They'd run out of herb tea at the end of the meal.

I can see the appeal of Tacubo: Japanese ingredients cooked in a light, Italian way.  Most people would not be able to and not know how to re-create these dishes at home.  There's undoubtedly a lot of skill in the cooking and this is a world away from 'Napolitan' pasta.  But for me, none of the savoury dishes were spectacular.  Felicelina, which I previously reviewed, cooks Japanese ingredients in an Italian way, though is somewhat heavier.  It's also a fraction of the price.  If you went there for the most expensive dinner course the food element of the bill would be JPY 6,000 less than Tacubo.  My 7-course lunch there was just under JPY 5,000.  You're not going to get premium ingredients at these prices but, other than the beef, there wasn't much in the way of premium ingredients at Tacubo either (and to be fair, I wouldn't expect that at this price for dinner in Tokyo either).  Looking at Kasai, where the chef is an alma mater of Tacubo, I much preferred my meal there.  It's a much shorter meal and the ingredients are cheaper but at least some of the dishes really did sing.  Moreover, it's half the cost.

I felt really lucky to get a seat at Tacubo and I was hoping it would turn out to be amazing.  If anything, my experience was lower than what I expected but given I went in with low expectations so I didn't go away too disappointed.  Needless to say, I did not book again.  Could this be the most overrated restaurant in Tokyo?

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1303/A130303/13109940/

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ 3.9

📱 Booking:  🟥 Very difficult.  Seats for one are extremely rare.  Omakase only.

📍 Location:

2-13-16 Ebisu-Nishi.  Under the staircase to the entrance to the CobraXion MIX gym.  5 mins North-West from Daikanyama station.

📅 Visit Winter 2020/2021

Green olives
Mozarella, tomato jelly, nasturtium leaf
Horse meat tartar, pastry, hazelnuts, fukinoto, mayonaise
Squid, salsa verde
Anago frit, coriander
Lettuce, cheese gratin
Pasta shirasu, broccoli, karasumi
Kagoshima sirloin, carrot
Lettuce
Spaghetti Bolognese
Grapefruit, orange, lemongrass granita
Milk ice, pistachio
Coffee, financier

💴 Damage: 24,070 (15,000 + 3 drinks at 4,900 + 10% + 10%)

⏱️ Time taken: 2h30m