Saucer

⭐⭐⭐

🇫🇷 French / 📍 Ebisu

📓 Visits: 1

A really good sauce takes a lot of skill, ingredients and time (sometimes days) to make.  There are many French restaurants in Japan but more often than not your main course is simply a presentation of roasted meat and sauteed vegetables with no sauce to bind it together.  Chef Kazuma Gunji worked at several Michelin Starred restaurants in the past, including as saucier, and aims to put sauce centre stage of his menu.

The restaurant opened in October 2021 and was originally introduction-only but since July 2022 has accepted general reservations.  The carte-blanche menu was priced at JPY 19,800 but increased to JPY 24,200 in June 2023.

First of all "gourgere" of aged potato and boudin noir.  So much horseradish I couldn't taste the sausage but still delicious in its own way.  8/10.  Next the signature triple consomme.  Made from chicken it was outstanding: thick, rich, accent of thyme.  9.5/10.  Next cold starter of green asparagus.  The ice-cream was supposedly a truffle ice-cream but it tasted mainly of mushrooms.  (If you're going to pull out the truffle then don't hold back.)  The best part of the dish was the hotate but the balance was off.  It reminded me of the outstanding starter at Ars (review here).  7.5/10.  Next the first sauce and just a sauce, this one made from ayu.  This was delicious but got a bit salty towards the end.  The sauce was served with bread and butter (8.5/10 for both sauce and bread).  Next kuruma ebi stuffed with chicken mousse, deep fried and served with green curry sauce and sauce Americane.  The prawn was good (as all deep fried prawns are) but the green curry sauce killed the flavour of the shrimp and completely killed the flavour of the chicken.  It was probably better without the sauce and I wanted to leave most of it but this was only the second sauce in the meal and given sauces are the restaurant's raison d'être it would have been awkward to start leaving them.  8/10.  Next white asparagus pottage.  This was thick and a bit bitter but I think it was the chef's intention that this was a reset before the fish and meat courses.  8.5/10.  The first meat was a duck tsukune served with egg yolk.  The duck meat had lots of herbs.  The egg yolk added even more richness.  This was the best dish since the consomme.  9/10.  Unfortunately the meal went downhill again with the fish course of isaki.  The fish sauce was way too strong and salty and the second sauce made from saffron was overpowering as well.  I forgot there were mussels present.  The isaki just about stood up to the sauce but this was the worst dish in the meal.  7/10.  The main course was Chateaubriand of Maezawa beef from Ogata Ranch.  Served with an excellent Bordelaise sauce and tama-negi sauce the beef was very rich and cut like butter but was not too rich.  I felt the meat was oversalted but I got a large portion.  Along with the consomme this was the best dish of the evening and a very satisfying end to the savoury dishes.  9.5/10.  Dessert was marinated Dekopon, cardamon ice-cream and orange sauce.  The ice-cream was particularly good.  The meal finished with fresh herb tea which was very strong.

This was a very large meal.  Bread and butter were replaced without request (I think I ate four rolls).  Service was very good.  Although there are two tables in the restaurant everyone was seated at the counter.  The chef doesn't speak English but is enthusiastic and explains the dishes in detail.  The sommelier and restaurant manager could speak a few words of English.  A menu was provided that was bi-lingual but was one of those that simply had one word per course.

I appreciate the work gone in here and what the chef has set out to do.  You certainly couldn't make the usual complaints about dishes being boring, too small or lacking in flavour.  Even the plates used were different, mostly from Gien in France.  But I think the chef over-corrected: the seasonings and sauces were generally too strong.  I suppose 20K for this amount and complexity of food for dinner in Ebisu is reasonable value but if I'd gone after the 25% increase I'd have been disappointed.  10/10 for effort but 7/10 for execution.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1303/A130302/13263364/ 

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ 3.95 

📱 Booking: 🟩 Same-week bookings via Tabelog or Omakase.  Same-day bookings by phone may be possible.
📍 Location: 

B1F Ebisu Dai 3 Bldg, 2-7-10 Ebisu-Nishi.  6 mins from Ebisu station East Exit (JR) or Exit 2 (Metro).  B1F multi-tenant building.  Dial "1-0-1-[呼出]" on the auto-lock to enter.
Map data ©2023 Google

📅 Visit May 2023

Gougere, boudin noir, aged pomme puree, horseradish
Triple chicken consomme
Asparagus, tomato jelly, asparagus mousse, truffle ice-cream, hotate, kankitsu
Ayu sauce
Kuruma ebi, jidori mousse, sauce Americane, Thai green curry sauce
Asparagus pottage
Duck, egg yolk
Isaki, fish sauce, saffron sauce, mussels
Iwate Chateaubriand, Bordelaise sauce, tamanegi sauce
Orange sauce, marinated dekopon, cardomon ice-cream
Fresh herb tea

💴 Damage: 25,420 (19800 + 3 drinks @5200)
⏱️ Time taken: 2h30m