Toki

⭐⭐⭐

🎁 Innovative ✖️ 🇪🇸 Spanish  / 📍 Shimbashi

📓 Visits: 1 (2022)

Toki had been on my radar for a while but the award of a Michelin Star in the 2023 Tokyo Guide prompted me to make a reservation.  Dinner courses are from JPY 13,200.  The cheapest option is the weekday-only lunch of appetizer, salad, main dish and baguette for JPY 1,980 (dessert and coffee +550) but I went for the 5-course JPY 4,200 "menu especial", also only available at weekday lunch.

First up tachibana citrus tea.  I did not like this at all and it was served lukewarm.  4/10.  Next mushroom broth, shiitake, Kita-akari jagaimo.  This was nothing special and hot soup should not be served in a cold bowl.  6/10.  The next item of nameko, ebi mi-cuit in a clam and sake broth was delicious.  This was the best course in the meal and I wanted more.  8/10.  Next cold fresh pasta, saffron, clam sauce, taro.  The pasta was high quality but the blowtorched taro on the side added nothing and the portion was tiny.  It might have been better hot.  7.5/10.  The main dish was loin of pork (very good), celery granita (fine), chestnut croquette (bit sweet).  7.5/10.  For dessert kaki, chestnut puree, liquorice gelato, matcha.  This I did not enjoy.  6/10.  Finally wakocha, sencha or hojicha.  I chose wakocha, which was excellent.  8/10.  Three kinds of bread were served which I rated 7, 7.5 and 8/10.  The olive oil was too fruity for me.  Portions were very small and it was probably only the bread that sated my hunger.

The dining room was very comfortable: carpeted with upholstered chairs and plenty of space between tables.  Service was very good and staff can speak English.

If you read this far you've probably gathered I didn't really enjoy Toki.  What I hadn't realised, until right before my visit, is that it is a sister restaurant to Akordu in Nara which holds two Michelin Stars and is somewhere I'd been planning to visit.  As at Akordu they make a big thing about using ingredients from Nara at Toki but if only one dish in the entire meal is very good then it doesn't matter where the ingredients are from (or maybe that's the problem).  I was hoping for an exciting Spanish meal at Toki but instead left fairly disappointed and wondering if this restaurant would have won a Star had it not had a starred sister.  But more than that, it put me off wanting to make the trip to Nara.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1301/A130103/13262451/

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ 3.6

📱 Booking: 🟩  Easy.  Same week by Tabelog or phone.  English-speaking staff available.

📍 Location: 

2F SMBC Shimbashi, 1-8-4 Shimbashi.  1 minute from Shimbashi Station Exit 1.  Nara Specialty Shop and Tourism Information is on the ground floor of the same building.
Map data ©2023 Google

📅 Visit November 2022

Menu 'especial':
Tachibana tea
Mushroom broth, shiitake, Kita-akari jagaimo
Nameko, ebi mi-cuit, clam, sake broth
Cold fresh pasta, saffron, clam sauce, taro
Loin of pork, celery granita, chestnut croquette
Kaki, chestnut puree, liquorice gelato, matcha
Wakocha (or sencha or hojicha)

💴 Damage: 4,621 (4200 + 10%)

⏱️ Time taken: 1h20m