AC House
⭐⭐⭐
Nordic/Japanese / ๐ Nishi-Azabu
๐ Visits: 2 (2022, 2023)
After a woeful meal on a return visit to Kabi (review here) it was time to make a return to AC House. Chef Atsuki Kuroda previously worked at Caveman (review here) and prior to that Kabi and I loved my first meal here.
It's better to think of the curved, white, stone 'counter' at AC House as a communal chef's table seating up to 10. It's the sort of thing that makes Japan, and dining out in Japan so special. A super cool, intimate and modern space downstairs but look up and you'll see the original wooden roof and beams that make up this converted house just off the Nishi-Azabu end of Gaien Nishi-Dori. Though dress warm in winter because the room was cold in December.
The restaurant opened with a 10-course dinner priced at JPY 12,000 and a 5-course lunch (served on Saturdays only) at JPY 6,000. Course prices increased by JPY 1,000 from 1st December 2023 and lunch is now 6 courses. On both my visits I went for lunch. Still or sparkling water is included. All diners are served at the same time.
If you book in English the menu will be printed for you in English. It's even more terse than at Caveman with just a single word of the main ingredient per course item: corn, melon, bread, sea eel, lamb, banana (visit #1) and buri, kaki, sawara, shika, pasta, yonashi (visit #2). Kuroda-san can speak some English and described the dishes for me separately. Music was pretty loud and even more eclectic than the food. On visit #1 this was a mix from Norway's Todd Terje. On visit #2 it was Dorothy Ashby and Sam Gendel. Kuroda-san describes his food as "no genre". The music on visit #1 was a bit of a giveaway but on visit #2 it told you very little.
I requested a non-alcohol pairing on my first visit. That wasn't officially available but the waitress accommodated me. While I could appreciate that it was of superior quality I just don't get on with hojicha but the other three drinks were very good, the best being the lapsang souchong which was outstanding. In 2023 they added a no alchohol pairing option when you book, but for some reason that was not available on the day on my second visit. So I said "omakase" and was given one drink to start but had to request a second drink, from which I was given a choice. The first drink was good but the second was too sharp for me.
On my first visit my drink took 15 minutes to arrive and the first dish wasn't served until 22 minutes into the sitting. With only four diners on my second visit, there was less of a delay at the start: the first dish arrived within 12 minutes though (perhaps due to two painfully slow eaters) the meal still ended up taking the best part of two hours.
The cooking was outstanding on visit #1. The anago in red wine with asparagus risotto was spectacular (10/10). There's nowhere else where you eat a dish such as this (well, except maybe Caveman and Kabi :p) The main dish of lamb loin was perfectly cooked. A relative rarity in dining in Japan, it came with a proper sauce. 9/10. Good homemade bread was served as a 'course' at lunch (it doesn't count as one of the five). I was glad I saved some to mop up some of that delicious sauce. Dessert was banana cake and ice-cream. It was more intense than indulgent so just like a cuddle at the end of the meal but while having your nipples tweaked. A real treat (9.5/10) but, unless you're a sadomasochist, you wouldn't want it every day.
The meal got off to a fantastic start on visit #2 with buri tartar, asahi soup, ikura, nanohana and fig oil. The ikura acted as seasoning for the dish and the fig oil transformed it from a good Japanese dish into something else entirely. This is what I came for. Unfortunately it didn't get any better than that. Dish #2 was kaki beignet. Nothing wrong with it, but deep fried anything is always good and there was nothing on the plate that revolutionized it. Dish #3 was sawara in an asahi broth with Japanese mushrooms. The nashi ponzu on the side was inspired but this wasn't enough to make a difference to what was a typical Autumun Japanese dish. The main dish was Ezo shika. This was delicious, the sauce especially so. Unfortunately, unlike last time, there was no bread to mop it up so it went to waste. The meat was dressed with some baby horenso. This was so sweet it tasted like carrot: really special. Carbohydrate came in the form of one more course than last time: tomato and cheese pasta with nama ham. I didn't get a chance to ask the chef about the provenance of the ingredients but the pasta (made from wholemeal flour?) was delicious and I'd happily eat it again, which I don't often say about pasta. The final dish was poached pear with thyme sorbet, cacao caramel, chocolate cream and cheese cream. The only fault with this was that I would have liked more pear and it wasn't memorable.
There were no more than three slithers of aori ika in the second starter on visit #1 and just three bites of lamb in the main on the same visit. Portions were maybe slightly bigger on visit #2? With the pasta it was enough to fill me up, unlike on visit #1.
The bill on visit #2 came to JPY 12,100. That's quite a bit more than the advertised JPY 7,000 for lunch but that excludes tax and service. Tea is charged at 600 yen (plus tax and service) and non-alcoholic drinks are JPY 1,200 (plus tax and service).
On my first visit I rated the cooking 5.0: there was really nothing to fault in the composition of the dishes and their execution. What brought down my overall score to 4.1 was the quality of ingredients (4.0 - very good, but not amazing) and value for money (3.9). The cooking on visit #2 was very accomplished again but with the dishes being more classic there's more to fault and with the drinks not being as good as well (8/10 for the mikan and 7/10 for the beets), it's even less value for money. Overall, the meal in visit #2 felt 'safe', which is never a word I thought I'd hear myself say in this restaurant and exactly what I don't come here for. If you've never been to AC House it's worth a shot if you're bored with kaiseki and if you've got the patience, but I don't plan to return. Ukiyo is now my favourite for modern, genreless cooking in Tokyo.
๐ https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1307/A130701/13272000/
❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ 3.9
๐ฑ Booking: ๐ฉ Easy. At least a day in advance via TableCheck. Same-day reservations (including lunch) are possible by phone.
๐ Location:
Map data ©2022 Google
๐
Visit December 2023
12:13 Buri, radish, asahi broth, ikura, nanohana, fig oil
12:29 Kaki beignet, yurine puree, shallot sauce
12:43 Sawara, asahi dashi, maitake, shiitake, nameko, seri, nashi ponzu
13:03 Ezo shika sumiyaki, horenso, Jerusalem artichoke puree
13:19 Tomato and cheese pasta, nama ham
13:42 Cheese, chocolate, pear, thyme, cacao caramel
Mikan, fennel, banana
Beets, iribancha, rhubarb
⏱️ Time taken: 1h45m
๐
Visit June 2022
Cold corn soup, shirasu, blue cheese
Melon, summer veg, aori ika, yoghurt powder
Anago in red wine, asparagus risotto, gooseberry
Bread
Lamb, celeriac, togarashi puree
Banana pound cake, banana sauce, hay-smoked milk ice-cream
Sakura cordial
Hojicha
Jasmine, pineapple, beet kombucha
Lapsang souchong
๐ด Damage: 11,500
⏱️ Time taken: 1h45m
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