⚠️ Closed on 10th December 2023.

Cali Style Oryouri Yuzan Keiichiro Kurobe

⭐⭐⭐⭐

🇯🇵🇺🇸🇮🇹 Japanese/Californian/Italian / 📍 Ginza

📓 Visits: 2 (2021-2022)

"WTF?  This is gonna be bad..." was what I thought when I saw this restaurant land last year.  But with a few good Tabelog reviews and lunch a third less than dinner I thought I wouldn't be losing too much by taking a punt.  Well call me prejudicial because this guy can cook.

Keiichiro Kurobe's full profile is on the restaurant's website but in brief, Keiichiro was born in NYC but schooled and previously worked in Japan so he has native Japanese and English.  He was most recently in LA, opening the Italian/Japanese "Blackship", which has now closed.  That brought him back to Japan in 2021 where he took over the space that was previously Niku Kappo Yuzan.

The lunch and dinner menus, priced at JPY 8,800 and 13,200, respectively are pretty similar.  The difference between the two is that at dinner you get an extra dessert and the cheeseburger is replaced with a rice dish cooked in a donabe, but otherwise the menus are identical.  You can also add a course of Japanese beef for an extra charge.  Prices include tax and no service charge is taken.  On both my visits I went for lunch (which is only served at weekends), without the optional course.

Both menus are reproduced below but just reading the English names of each dish gives little away: "Flour & Eggs" was tuna 'bolognese', pappardelle pasta and shiso.  "Shungiku" was the ingredient used to flavour gnocchi.  "Strawberry kakigori" contained no less than layers of: mirin custard, strawberry jam, nata de coco, brown butter cookie crumb, cardamon ice-cream, strawberry and hibiscus ice and strawberry condensed milk.  The structure of the menu on both my visits was similar but, with the exception of the cheeseburger, every dish was quite different.  At each meal there were one or two items that weren't on the printed menu: the tepache beer on visit #1, the TKG arancini and tasting of bacon on visit #2.

A measure of how good I think a restaurant is is how few notes I take.  Sometimes a dish is simply unforgettable.  If a dish isn't quite unforgettable but is as it should be: the ingredients fresh and vibrant, properly cooked, properly seasoned, with the right amount of acidity, enough texture and flavour and the dish comes together as a whole then there's literally nothing noteworthy.  On the other hand, if a dish falls short somewhere then, regretfully, I'll note it.  During both my meals at Yuzan I've written very few notes.  If there's been one highlight in my meals it's probably the cheeseburger.  It's actually quite hard to make a really good burger and this is one of the best I've had in Tokyo.  As I mentioned, at dinner the cheeseburger is substituted with donabe but you really should try the burger so if you're going for dinner I would ask chef if he could find a way to incorporate it into the menu.  The only criticism I have is that the chicken in the 'Rosemary hen & asparagus' dish didn't have the deep flavour you get from a really good roast chicken.  But that really is it.

'Cali' reminded me of Caveman (review here).  Not because the food is in anyway similar (it isn't) but because, like Caveman, it's trying to do something different and more than that it's everything that Caveman could have been with a little more effort: much better quality ingredients, a meal that will fill you up, a chef behind the counter who actually interacts with guests and a restaurant that takes same-day bookings by phone.  8K is a high entry point for lunch but given the quality of ingredients and cooking, the intricacy of the dishes and the amount of food it's actually good value.

On my first visit I was the only diner.  On my second there were another two diners so the meal took that bit longer.  The restaurant is not in the ideal location for the younger customer base it needs to attract but that's the space the owner has and once you're inside you can't fail to raise a smile at the bright interior with its Californian tweaks.  Hopefully this short review gives you a sense of the food served at Cali Style Oryouri Yuzan Keiichiro Kurobe (if you're still lost, it's a refined fusion of Japanese, American and Italian).  The best way to find out is to go yourself.  Slip on your flip flops and shades and slide your way across the parquet floor of Barneys NY Ginza for omakase in Tokyo like you've never had.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1301/A130101/13261271/

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.15

📱 Booking: 🟩  Easy.  Next day or advance bookings taken via TableCheck or Tabelog.  Same day bookings taken by phone.  Assistant cannot speak English so ask for Kurobe-san.

📍 Location:

4F Koujun Bldg (Barneys New York Ginza), 6-8-7 Ginza.  2-3 mins walk South-West from B3 Exit (Marunouchi/Hibiya Line) or A1 Exit (Ginza Line) Ginza station.  4F multi-tenant building.
Map data ©2022 Google 

📅 Visit March 2022

💴 Damage: 9,790 (8800 + 1 drink at 990)
⏱️ Time taken: 1h50m

📅 Visit August 2021

💴 Damage: 10,010 (8800 + 1 drink at 1210)
⏱️ Time taken: 1h30m