Tomikura

⚠️ Tomikura closed at the end of 2022.   The chef plans to move overseas.

Tomikura (富味座)

⭐⭐⭐⭐

🇯🇵 Kaiseki / 📍 Shintomicho

📓 Visits: 1

Another new opening in the Kyo Aji lineage of restaurants with owner/chef Tomoaki Kataoka having previously worked at the introduction-only Iyuki and Rokkan and under the legend Kenichiro Nishi himself.  A straight counter seats 7.  On my visit 6 of those seats were taken and there were two diners in a private room.  All diners are served at the same time.  Kataoka-san is polite and quietly introduces each dish but doesn't initiate conversation.  He has a slight lisp which makes it difficult to hear everything clearly.  No English is spoken.

The signature summer dish is live abalone simply grilled rare on a Japanese barbecue.  It's great theatre but the awabi didn't have the deep flavour I hoped it would so was a bit disappointing after all that expectation.  The kimo sauce was very thin.  I'd expect the abalone to be swapped for crab and matsutake from mid-September.  The shokuji consisted of white rice, a further three rice dishes and ramen.  Because I was so hungry (I'll come back to this) I asked for large portions of all the rice dishes and a standard-sized portion of ramen.  Seasoning was a bit all over the place.  Suppon sansho was very highly seasoned.  Karasumi imushi was quite salty.  Sake gohan was super salty.  On the other hand shiraae, yurine, matsu no mi had very little taste and felt like something you'd get in an upmarket izakaya or as part of a hassun, rather than a standalone dish.  One of the courses was plain white rice: very much in the Kyoto style but didn't match seasoning of the other dishes.  Owan was made from togarashi as opposed to clear soup so I was unable to judge the chef's dashi.  The best dishes were the awabi deep fried in yuba, hata otsukuri, suppon tamago gohan and shigureni which was the best I've ever had: a perfect balance of sweet, spice, fat and umami.  Dessert was birds nest in grapefruit sauce.  Didn't do a lot for me.  Well, perhaps it improved my skin.

The main problem was that all the dishes are quite small with the apparent intent that you're left with lots of room to sample all the rice dishes at the end but I just felt hungry until about the 9th item and really wanted to ask for some bread or something - it was that painful.

Chef saw me to the door on the way out and handed me what would be two (delicious) suppon futomaki and two inari zushi to take home.  The only faults in the cooking were with, as I mentioned, the seasoning, which is somewhat subjective and the meal included lots of expensive ingredients so reasonable value from that perspective.  But overall this was pretty disappointing.  At 33k there weren't enough highlights in the meal and no single dish I'd yearn to eat again making this a very forgettable experience.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1313/A131301/13270015/

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.05

📱 Booking: 🟧  Book at least 6 weeks in advance by phone.  No English spoken.

📍 Location:

1-7-9 Shintomicho.  1 min North from Shintomicho station Exit 2.  Dedicated street-facing entrance.
Map data ©2022 Google

📅 Visit June 2022

Suppon sansho; zuiki; uni, junsai, yamaimo
Karasumi imushi
Shiraae, yurine, matsu no mi
Awabi no yuba tsutsumi-age
Hamo to-age
Hata otsukuri
Cold renkon manju, togarashi soup
Awabi sumibiyaki
Managatsuo yakimono
Kamo nasu nimono
Miso soup, pickles
Niigata Shinosuke
Suppon tamago donburi
Sake ikura gohan
Shigureni donburi
Suppon dashi ramen
Tsubamenosu, suika sauce
Tea

💴 Damage: 35,151 incl one drink at 550 yen
⏱️ Time taken: 2h20m