LE PORTIER Par Aux Delices de dodine Toranomon

🇫🇷 French Bistro / 📍 Toranomon

📓 Visits: 7 (2021-2023)

The "dodine" group of French bistros have four three locations:

• the original "Les Jardin" in Daimon which had a Bib Gourmand until its removal in the Michelin Guide Tokyo 2023;
• "Les pif", also in Daimon;
• "Les Portier" in Toranomon, which until very recently was the newest location; and
  
• "Aux delices" which relocated from Daimon to open with Tokyo Midtown Yaesu on 10th March 2023.

The restaurants are most well-known for their two-course lunches which were priced at just JPY 1,100 inclusive, increasing to JPY 1,200 in 2022.  All my visits have been to the Toranomon location.

Starter is always a choice of salad or soup.  For main there's a choice of three dishes: a daily/weekly 'special', a chicken dish and grilled pork in mustard sauce.  All meals come with bread and all mains are fully garnished.  Menus are in French and Japanese.  A copy of a menu from March 2023 is below.

Salad is pretty decent and a large portion.  Pottage is a bit thin and milky rather than tasting of the main ingredient but for 1000 yen you can't really complain.

Most people order the grilled pork.  It's a 250g boneless steak.  Not exactly full of flavour and I had to leave a fair amount of fat.

If you order the chicken you get 3 chicken thighs so no shortage of meat there either.  The chicken itself doesn't have a huge amount of flavour too, but it's fine.

For fish, two thick slices of swordfish in a caper and butter sauce.  This might have been the most interesting of the mains I've had at Portier.

Pork belly with black pepper.  Smaller than the usual pork steak but more flavour.

There's no side of white rice served here: the grilled pork is always served with mash, as was the fish when I had it.  The mash isn't particularly buttery but you get a good amount.  On one occasion one of the chicken dishes was served with buttered rice.

Food comes out in batches.  Chicken, fish and the veg are all pre-cooked while the pork steak is finished on the grill.  Given the incredible price point and that most of the flavour comes from seasonings, I suspect it's all from frozen.

You could throw a stick just about anywhere in Tokyo and find somewhere that serves French food that's more gastronomic than here but equally I've paid multiples of what you pay here and had less satisfying meals.  This is one of the best value lunches in Tokyo, cheaper than cooking yourself and no white rice!

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1308/A130802/13262409/

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ 3.8 (value: 5.0)

📱 Booking: No bookings at lunch.  Restaurant opens at 11:30 (weekdays only) and if you're not there by 11:35 the restaurant will be full and you won't be seated for at least 30 mins when they start turning tables.  If you're not in the first group you need to write your name down on the sheet in front of the restaurant.  They always close early at lunch because they always sell out.

📍 Location: 

1F Hibiya Fort Tower, 1-1-1 Nishi-Shimbashi.  A few mins walk from nearby stations.  1F multi-tenant building.  Entrance inside the main building.
Map data ©2022 Google

💴 Damage: 1,100-1,200 (cash only)

⏱️ Time taken: 20-35m