Amarantos

Amarantos (アマラントス)

⭐⭐⭐⭐

🇫🇷 French / 📍 Akasaka

📓 Visits: 1

Owner/chef Shintaro Miyazaki has over 20 years experience as a chef.  After spending a couple of years in Paris he won a Michelin Star for Au Goût du Jour Nouvelle Ère (strangely removed from Tabelog) in the 2009 Tokyo Guide.  Miyazaki-san left in 2014, the restaurant was deleted from the 2015 Guide and closed in 2017.  The then head chef at 'Ère' went on to open Recte.  Following that, Miyazaki moved to the Ritz Carlton Tokyo where he won Azure 45 a Michelin Star in the 2016 Tokyo Guide.  Miyazaki left 45 in April 2021 and went on to crowdfund and open Amarantos in October.  Taking one of the restaurant managers and sous chefs with him, he clearly left a big gap as Azure 45 was deleted in the 2022 Michelin Guide published just a month after Amarantos opened.

Seating up to eight at a counter only, Amarantos is a much smaller operation than Miyazaki's previous gigs and intentionally so.  A 10-course lunch, served on weekends on holidays is priced at JPY 14,500.  Dinner is the same as lunch but with the addition of an extra course and is priced at JPY 19,800.  On my visit I went for lunch.  There's no simultaneous start.

First up a 3-part amuse: ayu beignet, edamame on a corn chip and shirasu on sable.  9/10.  Next sweetcorn ice-cream with grilled corn.  8.5/10 - a bit small and needed some bread to go with it.  Next a selection of vegetables served with a tomato consomme.  The confit potato with homemade karasumi was probably the pick.  The vegetables were of good quality but the consomme wasn't dazzling.  8.5/10.  After this the first piece of bread was served.  Next, a rare thing in Japan: a very good and properly cooked sweetbread dish (veal, with onions three ways).  8.5/10.  Had the sweetbread been larger and crispy on the outside this could have scored higher.  Before the fish course turnip consomme.  I was warned it was hot but I don't get the practice in Japan of serving dashi so hot you can hardly hold the container and so it burns your tongue.  7/10.  Oh, now moments later it's 8/10 - much better when not blisteringly hot.  Fish was kuromutsu, pan fried, with bouillabaisse sauce.  8/10.  Again I wanted bread but the second piece wasn't ready until I was just finishing up so the waiter was forced (as it's warm) to serve it and explain it while I was still eating.  The main dish was Ishigaki beef.  It was a bit chewy in the middle but apart from that this was one of the best steaks I've ever eaten in Japan.  The smoke added another dimension of flavour.  Comparable with the beef at Aca, much better than the steak at Suzutashiki and better than at many Japanese steakhouses.  It was a small amount but so rich you didn't need any more.  To be perfect it needed to be cooked low and slow.  That's not realistic with this kind of operation, but it was very nearly there.  9.9/10.  The final kind of bread was served a few moments after the main dish.  First dessert was a milk ice-cream with salt and an oil infused with herbs.  This was perfect, 10/10.  Next a meringue encasing lime, chocolate and a tonka bean mousse.  For me the flavours clashed and there wasn't enough contrast in texture.  A disappointing 7 given what had come before.  Finally, a mango, chai and caramel tart (another clash of flavours - 7.5/10) and standard coffee.

Three kinds of bread were served with a smoked whipped butter.  The first kind was a 'chiffon cake' flavoured with mustard and bacon, then a cheesy 'madeleine' and finally a white vinegar bread.  If you've eaten in chef's previous restaurants you might remember some of these but they were all new to me.  The white vinegar bread was a bit dense but had the best flavour, perhaps because it was the most simple.  While all of the bread was delicious I don't really need each piece of bread to be a standalone snack and would have been happier if one type of bread (the vinegar one) could have been served throughout the meal and in time for each course, rather with the poor timing I mentioned (sorry, First World problems).

I ordered one non-alcoholic drink which I was not charged for (on the house, when I queried it) and a glass of good champagne which was JPY 1,800 from a bottle that retails at around JPY 4,000.  If I'd known it was that cheap I would have ordered more but no drink menu was available and as this was a 15K lunch in a restaurant I'd never been to before I was worried about expense.

Miyazaki-san can speak French and a little English.  Restaurant manager and sommelier Daishi Kamoshida can speak good English.  There was very little atmosphere to start with.  The two chefs work very quietly.  The restaurant manager chatted with me a little.  Two other diners, known to the chef, arrived 45 minutes after me and then chef warmed up and chatted with me a little too and was friendly.  Ventilation was not very good.

The ice-cream and the steak were stunning and the other savoury dishes were pretty good too.  But some dishes were quite small and the main dessert and petits four were disappointing.  For a multi-course meal you could go to Yumanite (review here) for 12k or Cocon (review here) for 6k or Hatos (review to come) for just 5k.  You won't get all the bread, not quite as many elaborate dishes or expensive ingredients but the cooking might be a little better and you might be just as satisfied.  Given the standard of cooking and chef's track record I'd expected this restaurant to be awarded a Michelin Star this year, and it was.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1308/A130802/13265647/

❓ My Rating: 4.05 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

📱 Booking: 🟩 Easy.  A few days in advance by Tabelog or phone.  Restaurant manager speaks English

📍 Location: 

2F FUN ART AKASAKA, 2-18-5 Akasaka.  2F multi-tenant building.  3 mins from Akasaka station Exit 12.
Map data ©2022 Google

📶 Free WiFi? ✅ Yes

📅 Visit July 2022

Course 13182
Drink 0
Champagne 1800
Service 10%
Tax 10%

💴 Damage: 18,128
⏱️ Time taken: 1h50m