Amandier

⭐⭐⭐⭐

🇫🇷 French / 📍 Shirokane

📓 Visits: 1 (2022)

Amandier is the newest member of the Hasegawa Minoru group of restaurants.  There's only one course menu available priced at JPY 36,300 inclusive.  You can preview the current menu (in Japanese only) on their Website.

I didn't score every dish as, at least for most of the savoury dishes, they were faultless, with every dish featuring high quality and expensive ingredients perfectly cooked.  Not so special was the capellini, and while the Limousin lamb in the main dish had excellent flavour I didn't like the sauce and left most of it.  Individual portions are quite small but many of the ingredients are rich and with 13-14 courses and an alcohol pairing it's a lot.  The menu fell down at desserts.  The restaurant has a separate pastry chef, who brought out these out, but unfortunately they were not up to the standard of the savoury dishes.  Yamamomo sorbet with rose jelly was more refreshing than sweet.  If the intent was a pre-dessert it was too large.  If the intent was a dessert proper it lacked an element.  Perhaps the chef hadn't thought about what the intention was.  Next a composition of chocolate made mostly from Pacari 70% chocolate.  This again was more refreshing than sweet and indulgent.  Coffee was served with petits fours (to be shared between two diners).  The canele was probably the best but goma tofu at the end of a meal was as welcome as a plate of seaweed would be and the coconut ice-cream in white chocolate had the familiar taste of most things taste of when chefs put them in white chocolate: cocoa butter and nothing else.  There was certainly a lot technique in the desserts but I like sweet and rich desserts so perhaps they were targeted more at the Japanese palate than mine.  The meal included an off-menu item of fried rice and bresaola.

Drinks are expensive: glass of champagne from 4,400, alcohol pairing 22,000, non-alcoholic pairing 11,000.  (The full drinks menu is available on Tabelog.)  I had the alcohol pairing.  Every dish came with a different wine, sometimes two, and they were all very good quality, one outstanding, a 1962 red.  Wine is not my thing so I didn't bother to note the actual wines served.

Service was excellent.  One of the staff could speak English and introduced the dishes separately for me.  The restaurant was very comfortable.  All seating is at tables and the restaurant is carpeted.

Overall, high quality and expensive ingredients cooked perfectly but nothing that stops you in your tracks, very little originality, nothing I'd want to eat again, very little I'll remember in a couple of months, poor desserts and expensive.  If you've got money to burn and are really looking to superficially impress someone then this restaurant fits the bill but I would not go back.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1307/A130703/13270090/

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.1 (desserts: a harsh 3.7)

📱 Booking: 🟩  Easy.  Omakase only and plenty of seats available.  Generally, as with all Hasegawa restaurants, reservations for solo diners are not accepted.  There are occasionally slots available for one but whether or not they'd honour them is another question.  I was in a group.

📍 Location: 

5-15-3 Shirokane.  Ebisu 3-chome crossing.  10 minutes' walk South from Hiroo Station Exit 1.  Dedicated street-facing entrance.
Map data ©2022 Google

📶 Free WiFi? ✅ Yes

📅 Visit August 2022

Ayu; shiro ebi and hotate sable; wagyu sukiyaki; uni, potato, hamo
Awabi, aged Inca no Awakening, turnip, oyster sauce
Gazpacho jelly, vegetables, beetroot soil
Veal cutlet, Comte sauce
Black fig spiced granita
Kegani salad
Managatsuo, truffle, Kurosaki cha-mame, katsuoboshi stock
Cold capellini
Limousin lamb, nasu, Madeira and vanilla sauce
+Fried rice, bresaola
Yamamomo sorbet, rose jelly
Pacari 70%, cocoa pulp
Petits fours: white chocolate coconut ice-cream, goma tofu, mango sable, canele

Pairing:

Sparkling wine
White wine
White wine
2x red
White
Tea
Orange wine
Rose
White
2x red
Champagne

💴 Damage: 36,300 (host paid for drinks)
⏱️ Time taken: 3h