⚠️ The Blind Donkey closed on 25th May 2023 and re-opened in Kiyosumi Shirakawa in July/August.

The Blind Donkey

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Japanese/Bistro / 📍 Kanda

📓 Visits: 3 (2022-2023)

The Blind Donkey opened in 2017 and was a collaboration between chefs Jerome Waag and Shinichiro Harakawa.  It had been on my to-visit list for a long time but I never made visiting a priority.  Harakawa-san sold his stake in the restaurant in 2020, relocated to Nagasaki and reprised Beard, which he ran in Meguro prior to launching The Blind Donkey.  Before relocating to Tokyo in 2016, Jerome Waag worked for 25 years at the legendary Chez Panisse in California with the final four as co/head chef.  Jerome remains as owner/chef at The Blind Donkey.

They've switched from a course/a-la-carte menu in the evenings to all a-la-carte.  During the day on Saturday they serve 'brunch' but on all my visits I went for the JPY 2,310 teishoku lunch served on Thursdays and Friday.  Jerome was only working on one of my visits but mostly kept his head down and didn't interact with guests.  Staff can speak English and there's an English menu.  The restaurant has a very casual atmosphere.

Food takes 10-20 minutes to arrive depending on how busy the restaurant is and how many staff are working.  You can have refills of rice but even with this, if you're a big eater the meal might not be enough so at JPY 2,310 this is a little expensive from a price/calorie perspective.  But this quality and variety of ingredients is not something you can find if you pop down to your local supermarket and to re-create this at home you'd need a decent amount of skill, a lot of time to source and put together those ingredients and a lot more money than a single meal will cost you here.  Desserts and (occasionally) extra side dishes are available but 3K is more than I wanted to spend for this kind of lunch.

I've enjoyed all my meals at The Blind Donkey and have no complaints about any dish that was served.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1310/A131002/13216562/

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.0

📱 Booking: 🟩 You can book by phone or TableCheck but on both my visits I just walked in and there were plenty of seats free.

📍 Location: 

3-17-4 Uchi-Kanda.  The entrance is actually through a door that looks like it's for another building, to the left of the glass front and then through the first door on your right when you make it inside.  But the front tends to be open a little it's easier to slide one of those doors and go in that way.  2 mins West from Kanda station.  Dedicated street-facing entrance.
Map data ©2022 Google

📅 Visit April 2023

💴 Damage: 2,310
⏱️ Time taken: 30m

📅 Visit February 2022

💴 Damage: 2,310
⏱️ Time taken: 40m

📅 Visit January 2022

💴 Damage: 2,310
⏱️ Time taken: 30m