Tempura Asanuma

Tempura Asanuma (天ぷら浅沼)

⭐⭐⭐⭐

🍤 Tempura / 📍 Nihombashi

📓 Visits: 1

The newest quality tempura restaurant to open in Tokyo.  Tsutomu Asanuma worked at various branches of Tenichi from the age of 18 and went independent aged 27 this year.  At lunch and dinner it's omakase only, priced at JPY 16,500, inclusive.

There was a good balance of vegetables and fish.  The best pieces in the set were the broccoli, which Asanuma-san slightly burned to enhance the flavour, the shirako and an outstanding hotate - fat, sweet and very fresh.  Asanuma-san wants you to enjoy the batter so intentionally leaves a little more on his tempura than most quality tempura restaurants but it's not heavy.  The meal reminded me very much of Ten Yokota: high quality ingredients perfectly cooked, courses identical in price, but nothing unusual or super-expensive.  That said I'd rate Tempura Asanuma above Ten Yokota.  Although the course doesn't include appetizers there were a couple more pieces of tempura in the set and unlike at Yokota the tempura didn't have a prevailing taste of sesame oil.  Megochi was included in the set today rather than anago so be sure to request anago when booking if you want to eat it.

The counter seats eight.  Asanuma runs the restaurant on his own.  On my visit I was the only diner so the course finished relatively quickly but once the place gets busier Asanuma-san will need to hire an assistant otherwise hospitality will suffer.

The restaurant gets good natural light from two sides depending on the time of day and is so clean and new you could still smell the cedar wood interior.  Asanuma-san doesn't speak any English but did chat a little (in Japanese).

Fault-free tempura, reasonably priced, easily one Michelin Star.  Will possibly go back in another season.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1302/A130202/13275655/

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.1

📱 Booking: 🟧 Was easy, now not so.  Last year you could book the day before or the same day for dinner.  By the first week of April 2023 they were full for the following two months.  New reservation periods open on the 1st of every month.  You can book via Tabelog but not if you're dining on your own.  No English spoken.

📍 Location:

6F Ordin Nihombashi Building, 2-10-11 Nihombashi.  6F multi-tenant building behind Takashimaya Nihombashi SC Annex.
Map data ©2022 Google

📅 Visit October 2022

Hatoshi
Ebi tama x2
Ebi x2
Broccoli
Kisu
Maitake
Hotate
Shiitake ebi
Shishamo
Shirako
Renkon
Megochi
Nasu
Satsumaimo
Kakiagedon
Akadashi
Kurimushi-yokan

💴 Damage: 17,280 inc tea and one bottle of water
⏱️ Time taken: 1h30m but see note