Aca

Acá (アカ)

⭐⭐⭐⭐

🇪🇸 Spanish / 📍 Nihombashi

📓 Visits: 2 (2021-2022)

Acá 1° was the hottest ticket in town in 2020 when it relocated from Kyoto to Tokyo.  I was watching the move carefully, correctly anticipating it would be very hard to book very quickly.  Despite me being online the exact time reservations first opened I failed and indeed it would then take me over a year to get a booking.  Aca is the most difficult reservation on Omakase that actually takes regular reservations.  At most a handful of, if any, seats are released each month.  Cancellations are never released and instead go to regular customers.  You need to be super quick to secure a seat as they'll all be gone in seconds.  When I booked I timed the prompt for conformation at 12:00.20.  Most of that was waiting for the site to respond and I'd probably selected my seat within 5-10 seconds.  Why so popular?  Before the move, Aca held one Michelin Star in the Kyoto Guide from 2017-2020.  On Tabelog the restaurant was the highest-ranking Spanish restaurant for the whole of Japan, the third-highest ranking restaurant in Kyoto and the recipient of Gold awards from 2018 through 2020.  So it goes without saying that this was my most highly anticipated meal in a very long time.

A counter seats 9 diners and there is no table seating, unlike at the Kyoto restaurant.  Of course, all courses are served to all diners simultaneously.  On my first visit one diner was 15 mins late so the first course didn't come out until 20 mins past the hour.  Another diner was 30 mins late but they weren't going to wait any longer for him.

The course follows the same format all year round: 13 courses with 4 starters including the signature "Tostada de Anchoa", 2 fish, "Gambas al Ajillo", Serrano ham soup, steak, paella, fruit, ice-cream dessert, and raw chocolate.  It seems like there's an increase in course items since the move.  You'll be asked if you want small or standard-sized portions when the meal starts.

Including owner/head chef Tetsuo Azuma there are two other chefs and three staff front-of-house.  Azuma-san makes a commanding presence in the kitchen: tall and in pristine whites, he could be a model (sorry ladies, he's married :). The kitchen is more set back than in the Kyoto restaurant so there's less opportunity to interact with chef and he quietly cooks for most of the meal but does come forward to introduce the dishes, spent a lot of time at the end of the meal chatting with guests and sees everyone off.  Azuma-san can speak decent English and told me to let him know if I needed any English explanations.  The other front of house staff can speak varying degrees of English.  I was at one end of the counter and one of the staff spent almost the whole of both meals chatting with me in English.

On my first visit everyone else was served a dish of kegani but I was served a single-item of smoked caviar.  A very restrained start but delicious and indulgent.  The second dish was the signature dish of tostada de anchoa made with kohada instead of anchovy.  The kohada was to the level of a very high quality sushi restaurant.  After two fish dishes sobrassada was served made with horse meat instead of pork and had excellent depth of flavour.  Next was sardine cooked in a bouillon made from smoked aubergine, topped with a paste made from aubergine/sardine and chorizo.  This was the best dish so far.  The fatty sardine had incredible flavour, as did the bouillon.  If your only experience of sardines is of the variety that come out of a tin then I can understand how you might be somewhat miffed at the prospect of a sardine being on the menu here but a fresh sardine in Japan or Spain is unlike anything that is tinned.  Homemade bread that came with the next dish of kuruma ebi and sharks fin cooked in olive oil was excellent.  The prawn could have had more flavour.  Staff advised me to save some of the oil for later.  I really wanted it, but I wisely declined a second piece of bread.  I'm not a fan of clear ham soup but the potato dumplings in the soup course that followed were excellent.  There was a choice between Yamaguchi fillet or Kobe sirloin for the main course.  I chose the sirloin.  This was a little unevenly cooked, served on a cold plate and needed more resting but had great flavour from the wood fire and a good crust.  At this point everyone else was about to be served a piece of fillet.  I was asked if I'd like to try this as well.  I could have said no but then I'd have to watch everyone else eating.  The fillet was actually better: properly rested, a deeper flavour from the smoke.  The beef here reminded me of the lacklustre signature wood-fired steak at Suzutashiki (review here).  The final dish was paella.  The other parties shared a paella of abalone but I got my own paella of kegani.  This was made from two kinds of rice and included squid and scallop.  This had a very intense flavour and went well with an aioli, lemon or some of the olive oil I'd saved.  I had two small portions and took the rest home.  This also explained why I was given a different first course - chef didn't want to repeat an ingredient.  Desserts were a bit of a disappointment.

On visit two the best savoury dishes were the kohada (same as last time), ayu (same as last time) and the prawns in oil: two fat and sweet kuruma ebi and fugu shirako.  Only one cut of beef (60g fillet) was served this time (someone asked why and while staff apologised, no explanation was offered).  This wasn't as good as I remembered it.  The flavour from the smoke was exceptional but the meat tasted strangely sweet rather than beefy.  As before, I got my own dish of paella.  This really wasn't special.  The paella I'd eaten at Makiyaki (review here) the week before was much better.  Pea "arroz caldoso" had sweet peas but no special flavour overall and nothing you couldn't make at home.  Tachiuo was huge but could have been hotter and wasn't an improvement over being simply grilled.  Other starters were all a bit 'meh'.  Desserts were much better than last time.  Fukuoka amaou was the best strawberry I'd ever eaten and really lived up to its name: amai, marui, okii, and umai.  Yaki-imo with goats milk and salt ice-cream was incredible.  The skin had turned candy-like and was edible.

The course is listed as JPY 27,500 including tax.  On my first visit the final bill was just short of 40,000 including about 7,500 yen of drinks.  If you add on 10% service it matches what I paid.  So it seems like they didn't charge me extra for the fillet.  That's pretty good value for all those expensive ingredients.  On my second visit the bill was just 2k less but I only had 3k worth of drinks and there was no second portion of beef.  You don't get an itemized receipt so I don't know how they calculated that but either way, this was substantially less good value than first time.  Three of the starters were completely different on visit two but the "anchovy toast" and ayu were identical.  There was very little difference between the tachiuo and soup items.  The main is always beef and there are other similarities throughout the menu.  If the majority of the dishes had been amazing I wouldn't mind eating a similar menu again but that wasn't the case.

I knew a little of what to expect at Aca but not much in detail.  I thought chef might be able to speak some English but I didn't expect him to be so engaging.  I didn't expect the other staff to be so nice and engaging as well.  I didn't expect chef to produce a paella just for me.  I knew it was Spanish cooking with heavy Japanese influences.  But being such a difficult booking I expected the food to be better.

It's essentially a procession of expensive Japanese ingredients cooked in a Spanish style, rather than authentically Spanish food.  You could go to any top kaiseki or sushi or steak restaurant in Tokyo that would be a lot easier to book and eat these ingredients.  They wouldn't be cooked this way but they wouldn't be the worse for it.  I much prefer Gracia (review here) to Aca.  They don't serve expensive ingredients but they do serve perhaps the best authentically Spanish food in Tokyo and at a quarter of the price.

Anything costing 30k should be amazing.  With all the anticipation I was I was expecting more than that: my socks to be blown off, the meal of a lifetime.  Tacubo was the most overrated restaurant I ever visited in Tokyo but Aca was perhaps the most disappointing.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1302/A130202/13249117/

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.1

📱 Booking: 🟥 As discussed, one of the most difficult bookings in Tokyo and you'll unlikely be able to make another booking after your meal as they'll be 'full' for several months ahead.  https://omakase.in/en/r/ac366431

📍 Location: 

Mitsui Building 2, 2-1-1 Nihonbashi-Muromachi.  Dedicated street-facing entrance opposite the side entrance to the Bank of Japan.  Entrance is very understated and easy to walk past.  2 mins from the A7 or A8 exits of Mitsukoshimae Station.  Ginza Line gate is much closer to the correct exit than the Hanzomon Line gate.

Map data ©2021 Google

📅 Visit Spring 2021

1. Pea "arroz caldoso"
2. "Tostada de anchoa": Kohada, tomato bread, shiso
3. Tachiuo, kikuimo
4. Ayu fried in semolina, manchego, sansho hana, sherry vinegar reduction
5. Kegani, tomato jelly, renkon
6. "Aho blanco", hot
7. "Gambas al ajillo": Kuruma ebi x2, fugu shirako, homemade bread
8. Serrano ham consomme, soramame puree pasta
9. Yamagata beef fillet, shin tama negi, purple carrot puree
10. Hotaru ika, takenoko paella
11. Fukuoka amaou
12. Yaki-imo, goats milk salt ice-cream
13. Raw chocolate
14. Coffee (or tea)

💴 Damage: 37,260 incl 3 drinks
⏱️ Time taken: 2h45m

📅 Visit Summer 2020

1. Smoked caviar
2. "Tostada de anchoa": Kohada, tomato bread, shiso
3. Tachiuo, shin renkon, sherry vinegar
4. Ayu fried in semolina, Mimolette, sansho hana, sherry vinegar reduction
5. "Sobrassada": Basashi, smoked tamago, bread, nama ham, shiso
6. Iwashi, nasu boullion, aubergine/sardine/chorizo paste
7. "Gambas al ajillo": Kuruma ebi, sharks fin, homemade bread
8. Serrano ham consomme, potato dumpling, truffles
9. Kobe sirloin
10. Yamaguchi fillet
11. Kegani, hotate, ika paella
12. Musk melon
13. Passion fruit, blancmange, milk ice
14. Raw chocolate
15. Coffee (or tea)

💴 Damage: 39,330 incl mineral water and 3 drinks
⏱️ Time taken: 3h