Azur et Masa Ueki

⭐⭐⭐

🇫🇷 French / 📍 Nishiazabu

📓 Visits: 1 (2021)

Masa Ueki previously ran Restaurant J and then Restaurant MASA UEKI.  The restaurant is open for dinner throughout the year and irregularly for lunch.  Dinner prices have crept up in the 4 years the restaurant has opened, starting at JPY 12,000 then rising to JPY 15,000 and JPY 18,000 from 8th March 2021 for 11 courses.  I went for lunch where the menu was JPY 12,000 for 8 courses.  Cheaper lunch menus with fewer courses have been offered in the past.  Prices are subject to tax and service.

The dining room is very comfortable: carpeted, tableclothed tables generously spaced and with a large fireplace.  There is no counter in this restaurant.  The chef and the staff could speak English very well and I was given a bilingual menu (pictured below) to follow my lunch.

First up was shirako served on a purple potato 'taco'.  Not the easiest thing to eat and only two bites but very good.  The second dish was kuruma ebi served with foie gras, citrus and a chocolate sauce.  I didn't expect that to work as a dish at all but it really did.  Next was Ezo abalone with turnip, Oscietra caviar and custard royale.  This was a good dish but there couldn't have been more than 8g of abalone on the plate.  The dish got cold very quickly, not being helped by being served in a cold bowl and with elaborate descriptions from the waiter.  Next was a single brown mushroom served with mushroom consomme on the side.  Good, but just a mushroom.  The fish course was kinmedai which didn't have much flavour and could have been hotter.  The best part of the dish was the squid ink tuille.  A salad course followed.  Ingredients were very fresh and the pistachios were of particularly high quality but the dish was gone in four mouthfuls.  I could happily eat a large plate of this for lunch every week.  The main course was a choice of duck, or beef for a supplement of JPY 2,800.  I chose the duck which was from Challans and was served with a brown butter and ishiru sauce, a croquette made from the leg and black cabbage.  The croquette was coated in brown rice flour and had a slightly unpleasant taste.  The duck was some of the best I've ever had and tasted like bacon.  Alas, you only got one piece.  I left most of the sauce behind.  Dessert was a deconstructed apple pie with a sake zabaione and was very good indeed.  Petit fours were high quality and served with herb tea (no choice offered).  Bread was served with good French butter and replenished.  Another Tabelog reviewer went during the same period as I did, had exactly the same menu and has pictured every dish here.

The 'Azur' in 'Azur and Masa Ueki' refers to an eponymous winery in the Napa Valley with which they have a relationship.  This doesn't appear to be a particularly notable winery and doesn't appear to have much of a catalogue.  Naturally, a wine pairing is available at the restaurant but I didn't see a long list of wines by the bottle or glass.  In what seems to have been a State of Emergency Special (i.e. no longer available) the lunch included a 3-glass pairing, which in my case was non-alcoholic, of one glass of hojicha and two glasses of oolongcha.  I would have preferred the alcoholic pairing but didn't realise a pairing was included in the course and don't remember being offered a choice.

I arrived at 12 and I was the only diner in the restaurant until 12:45.  By 12:23 I'd had 3 dishes, by 1pm I was done with all the savoury dishes and by 13:06 I'd finished dessert.  The food arrived at such a pace it was hard to keep up with writing notes between courses.  I'd expect the meal to take longer if the restaurant was busier but there are a number of chefs in the kitchen and there's no simultaneous start.

I enjoyed my meal at Azur et Masa Ueki.  Many of the dishes were original, the quality of ingredients was excellent and most of the food was very good.  The chef seems to be going for relatively expensive ingredients, which pushes the price of the meal up, but serves them in small portions (stopping the meal from becoming very expensive).  This really is a tasting menu.  I could see myself going back again once in another season to try some other dishes.  But I'd sacrifice premium ingredients for larger courses and would want better cooking across the whole menu, so I couldn't see myself coming here regularly.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1307/A130701/13206559/

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ 3.99

📱 Booking: 🟩 Relatively easy.  You generally need to book several days ahead either by phone or Tabelog.

📍 Location:

2-24-7 Nishiazabu.  Nishiazabu crossing.  Along from Butagumi and next to Sushi Tou.  Dedicated street-facing entrance.

Map data ©2021 Google

📅 Visit January 2021

💴 Damage: 16,335 (12k + 1 drink @ 1,500 + 10% + 10%)
⏱️ Time taken: 1h15m