Naoto.K
⭐⭐⭐⭐
๐ซ๐ท French / ๐ Kanda
๐ Visits: 3
2021 was a great year for new French restaurants in Tokyo. Sezanne stole all the headlines but not to be missed is Naoto.K. There's a certain format to the meal but across my three visits I haven't had an identical dish. (Full menu and evaluation of each meal below). Dinner increased in price from JPY 33,00 to JPY 38,500 from March 2022. Also since March a lunch service runs two Sundays a month priced at JPY 22,000. (Prices are inclusive.) My first two visits were for dinner, which comprised 13-14 courses. My most recent visit was for lunch in August which was 10-11 courses. In August dinner was 12 courses. Comparing my lunch menu with a dinner menu from the same week, in the table below, the two main differences are that dinner included one extra savoury dish of duck fricasse and the final item is the spectacular mousse cake whereas at lunch this was a kouglof. There are some differences between dishes (tripe at dinner, tongue at lunch; venison at dinner, pigeon at lunch) but those could just be due to ingredients available on the day rather than by design. The side salad at lunch is not really a 'course' but as far as I could tell there are no differences in portion sizes between lunch and dinner.
So lunch is clearly much better value but for this amount of food and this quality of cooking and ingredients I don't think dinner is unreasonable and I definitely missed the mousse cake. All courses come with excellent bread (which is replenished) made in the kitchen and served with French butter, and after-meal drink. Drinks are a touch expensive but there was no pressure from staff to order more.
๐ Visit August 2022 (lunch)
First three dishes were not spectacular. First dish of cucumber jelly was a bit small and more caviar than anything. The dish needed some bread. The tomato concasse in the deep fried squid that followed really killed the dish. I think squid is best raw and I never order it in a tempura restaurant. Corn soup would have been better without the consomme jelly. 7.5-8 for these dishes. Roast abalone was 9/10 and finally some bread arrived. Before the main course beef tongue, cooked using a three-stage process over four days so it's as soft as a peach. 10/10. 9.5 for the main course of pigeon. Ojiya instead of udon for carbohydrate. I'm not really into rice that doesn't have any bite and the udon dishes are better for me. 9/10 on flavour though. 9.5 for the pre-dessert and then 10/10 for the main dessert. If you were going to levy a complaint it might be that a tuile would have added some texture but I decided it didn't need it. Quality of fruit and balance of sweetness was excellent. Coconut ice-cream again one of best ice-creams I've ever eaten.
Aori ika frit, tomato, umeboshi sauce
Cold corn soup, consomme jelly
Roast abalone, beurre noisette, Inca Awakening fried potatoes
Gyutan, nasu, myoga
Loire pigeon, Hatcho miso, truffle, rhubarb
Ezo deer, sauce poivrade
Side salad chiffonade
Bouillabaisse ojiya, aori ika, lobster, murasaki uni
Apricot, tea granita
Peach soup, peach, pineapple, coconut ice-cream, peach foam
Wasabon, pear brandy, walnut kouglof
Fresh herb tea
๐ด Damage: 24,200 (22000 + 2 drinks @ 2200)
⏱ Time taken: 2h15m
๐ Visit May 2022 (dinner)
The best savoury dishes were the caviar and sour cream tart (super-sour sour cream, salty caviar, warm, flakey pastry straight from the oven), the chi-ayu dish and blue lobster dish. The lobster was slightly spiced and the execution of this dish was perfect. 10/10 for all of these. Also of note the white asparagus: very simple and just asparagus but perhaps the best ever - 9.5/10. There were no particularly weak dishes in the meal but being picky, and some of this is down to personal taste, pasta in the pasta dish was a bit thick; shiga carpaccio with cheese was a bit too funky for me; I don't like sansho so couldn't completely enjoy the udon dish (though the udon itself was as good as before - 10/10); pre-dessert and main dessert were not as good as before. Still, 8/10 for all. The loin in the main dish of milk-fed lamb tasted like hogget to me. The rest of the meat had the flavour I'd expect and there was a large amount of meat on the plate. The mousse cake was amazing again. I asked for large and they gave me super-large, almost a quarter of the entire cake. There was enough for 2-3 here and sadly it defeated me. 10/10.
Chi-ayu, avocado, vinegar sauce
Torigai, togarashi, Manganji gazpacho
Hamaguri, nori ravioli, butter sauce
Ezo shiga carpaccio, cheese
Salt-baked white asparagus, nama ham soup
Sakaramasu isobeyaki, beets, yoghurt
Blue lobster, cabbage and vanilla bouillon
Wagyu, black beer
Milk-fed lamb
Udon, sansho, lobster soup
Citrus sherbet, rosemary granita
Ichigo, amazake
Coffee, mascarpone, tonka, Griottes, cherry liqueur mousse cake
After-meal drink
๐ด Damage: 42,680 (38500 + 2 drinks @ 4180)
⏱ Time taken: 2h30m
๐
Visit February 2022 (dinner)
The best two dishes were the turnip potage and main course of veal. The potage was served with aoyagi, tairagai and hamaguri. The shellfish were as good as you'd get in a very good sushi restaurant, the flavour improved by a few seconds on a Japanese barbecue. The soup had a huge depth of flavour. The dish was finished with an outstanding Japanese olive oil that retails at JPY 7,000 for 100ml. Rump of Hokkaido veal was served with girolles. Some gristle was left on the meat but otherwise this was delicious. The sauce, again, excellent. I really appreciated the use of something other than beef for the main course. There aren't many restaurants in Tokyo where you can find such classic cooking so well executed. 10/10 for the potage and 9.5/10 for the main. Also of note the first dish of potato blini with caviar, the udon and desserts. The blini is actually the lopped-off top of a hot-out-of-oven potato souffle. This was unbelievably good. I wanted the rest of the souffle. 9/10, 10/10 had the caviar been better quality. Udon was served in a warm broth made from torafugu. The udon are supplied by Hashizume who've been making noodles since 1949. These had exceptional inherent flavour. 9/10. Main dessert of dried kaki served with a salt ice cream and flambรฉed Cognac. Alcoholic ice-creams are the best and I've eaten a lot of ice-cream in my time and this was the best ice-cream I'd ever had in my life. It was perfectly smooth, had an incredibly pure flavour of milk and salt. 8.5/10 for the dessert overall. 10/10 for the ice-cream. The finale was another dessert: a whole Italian pistachio and strawberry mousse cake shared between all diners. You could choose what size you'd like so I went large. Mousse cakes are difficult to make and to make one that size with a perfect finish requires a very high level of skill. 9/10.
Aoyagi, tairagai, hamaguri. Turnip soup
Salt-baked Ezo abalone, kimo, nori, sansho
Fried chicken, garlic and parsley crumb
Fruit tomato, herb water
Foie gras; sakura ebi, daikon galette; nama ham consomme
Monkfish, kegani
Beef tongue, sauce Pรฉrigueux
Hokkaido veal, girolles
Udon, torafugu sayu
Apple sorbet
Dried kaki, Christmas Island salt ice-cream, Cognac, meringue
Italian pistachio, strawberry mouse cake
Coffee
๐ด Damage: 35,640 (30k + 2 drinks @ 2400 + 10%)
⏱ Time taken: 2h10m
There is only one service per night. I asked if they were planning a second sitting per night and the manager said 'no', as 'our chef is very old' :) With age comes experience and prior to Naoto.K, Naoto Kishimoto ran L'Embellir which held a Michelin Star in every edition of the Tokyo Guide until it closed at the end of 2021. Service was excellent. Chef Kishimoto is more comfortable with French than English but the wait staff have decent English and took the time to explain each dish separately to me.
All seating is at a counter but the restaurant is very comfortable: plenty of space between each diner, comfortable chairs and a warm room. The kitchen is well-ventilated so you didn't have the usual problem of smelling like you'd just cooked the meal yourself when you leave. Glittering in the dark, the restaurant looks like a jewellery box from outside.
Going back to Sezanne, many people think this was the opening of 2021 and in many ways it was. Many of the dishes at Sezanne are unlike anything you'll find anywhere else. Food has an amazing purity of flavour from ingredients of quality second to none in any French restaurant in Tokyo. Presentation is modern, cooking is classic but not heavy. Naoto.K is more classic but the cooking is just as good and the desserts are better. Kishimoto-san's name may be on the door but as is often the case with the best French restaurants in Tokyo, a specialist pastry chef works alongside him. Natsuko Takahashi previously worked at 2-star Pierre Gagnaire in Tokyo as a pastry chef. The overall experience is arguably better at Naoto.K as well: sitting around the open kitchen means you get to see all the dishes prepared and can interact with the chefs.
Having had less than good experiences at Ao Nishiazabu and Ginza Oishi I was hesitant to visit Naoto.K when it opened, as the set-up is similar. But after my first meal I knew I'd experienced some of the best French cooking you'll find in Tokyo and my subsequent visits haven't disappointed.
๐ https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1310/A131002/13261755/
❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.7
๐ฑ Booking: ๐ฉ Easy. Same week via TableCheck (credit card required) or Omakase. Lunch at least a month in advance via Omakase only.
๐ Location:
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