Ukiyo

⭐⭐⭐⭐

💡 Innovative / 📍 Yoyogi

📓 Visits: 4 (2023-2024)

First review of the year goes to my favourite new opening in Tokyo in 2023.  Shizen (my last review of 2023) is a very close second and the food is outstanding there too, but Ukiyo wins on potential, originality, value for money, drinks and staff.

If you have to categorize the restaurant you'd have to call it innovative, but that doesn't tell you very much.  To understand where it's coming from you need to know where its staff have come from.  Chef Toshi Akama has Japanese parentage but grew up in Canada.  He's previously worked at (now closed) Town Mouse in Melbourne, Kiln - a charcoal grill Thai restaurant in London that the critics (and the punters) raved about when it opened in 2017 - and Ikoyi, a restaurant that might have closed in 2019 and now has two Michelin Stars and charges £300 for its tasting menu at dinner.  Toshi didn't just work at Ikoyi he was senior sous chef and co-founder Jeremy Chan called him "the best sous chef in London".  His experience in Japan includes cheffing at Kabi and Caveman.  Toshi has teamed up with Naoto Takeuchi who was sommelier at newly-Starred Kabi (sorry) for five years and who worked at 3-Star l'Effervescence prior to that.  Resident baker (and sous-chef?) Peadar Lewis is from Ireland.

Dinner is priced at JPY 15,000 for around 10 courses.  In September 2023 they introduced a 4-course lunch priced at JPY 5,000 but since December the same year lowered it to the ludicrously low price of JPY 3,800.  All my visits have been for lunch.

Lots of chefs are char-grilling, and you can feel the Kiln lineage with char-grilling the default method of cooking here.  But not many in Japan are adding spice.  You might taste a bit of Ikyoi in the food and Toshi uses spice throughout, while Peadar Lewis's baking brings comfort to a menu that otherwise might be too raspy.  It's these contrasts of light and dark that differentiate Ukiyo from Kabi, Caveman and AC House if you were thinking the food might be similar.

Lunch comprises starter, fish, meat and dessert.  The main dish I've scored 8.5-9/10 on each visit: chicken on visit #1, beef shank on visits #2-3 and flap on visit #4.  I assumed the shank was cheek but it was more unctuous and had great flavour from the aging.  The flap was served with a 'salsa verde' which really cut through the fattiness of the meat.  The meat course is served with a side of smashed, fried potatoes.  It's so nice to have your main course with a proper potato element and, ignoring French fries, if there's a better potato side dish on a menu anywhere in Tokyo I'm yet to find it (though in fairness, there isn't much competition).

There's a definite format to the lunch but there have been enough differences in the dishes each time to keep me coming back.  Even the small changes like using a spicier sauce with the potatoes on visit #2 or switching to a sweeter variety of potatoes to complement the saltier beef dish, on visit #4, not only keep things interesting but show a chef constantly thinking.

Lunch comes with a portion of brioche.  I didn't mention it to the chef on my first visit but the brioche was the weak point.  It's difficult to get a really light brioche and they needed to use a higher quality butter.  On visit #2 I sensed an improvement: they had switched butter and it was better.  I was impressed that they'd improved this so quickly.  There might be some way to go before it compares with Natsuko Shoji's brioche at Ete, just down the road, but it's better than any brioche you could find in a bakery in Tokyo.

3,800/5,000 yen for lunch here is a bargain and with the potatoes and a refill of brioche it's enough food.  Inevitably there are no trophy ingredients on the menu but there's more skill in a chef that can transform something humble into something delicious than a chef who just spoons some caviar on to some uni.  Take, for example, the salad on visit #2: some cheap Asteraceae and Brassica transformed by charcoal grilling and an original condiment.  And then there's the desserts.  The dessert on visit #2 couldn't have had more than a few hundred yen worth of ingredients in it but it was utterly delicious.  If you were paying 10k or 20k for something like this in a two-Star restaurant and it wasn't even that good you'd rightly be miffed, but there's a lot of talent and love that had gone into making an apple sorbet and blondie this good.  Dessert on visit #1 was no let-down either: the fig jam and crumble was a simple way to add surprise and texture to what would otherwise have been just raw figs and a very good sorbet.  Dessert on visit #3 might have been the best to date: the coconut ice-cream was perfect, the mikan jam was mellow rather than acidic, the sponge was light, the roasted milk powder added texture and richness.  Dessert on visit #4 was no slouch.  Give Black Forest Gateau to a Gen Z and this is what you'll get: the salt crystals transforming something that would have just been good into something memorable.  You can easily find more technical desserts than this in Tokyo but are they ones you'd like to eat again?

It's harder to score original drinks than it is to score original food but, along with those at Yumanite (review here) the non-alcoholic mixes I've had at Ukiyo are best I've had anywhere in Tokyo.  There are several choices at JPY 1,200 a glass so let Takeuchi-san guide you.  I was wondering why the drinks at Kabi were only "fine" on my last visit.  Perhaps it's the absence of Takeuchi-san that explains it.

Prices are subject to 10% service charge and if you went for dinner and had the pairing you'd be paying the best part of 30k.  That's a lot of money and you're probably not going to love every dish.  The fish and spiced broth dish is too harsh for me.  I want my soups to make me feel like I'm in a heated sleeping bag.  This makes me feel like I'm being chained to a metal bedframe while having my buttocks spanked with a paddle.  You might like that, but it's not for me.  On my two most recent visits the fish has been replaced with an oilier type of fish, which I think works better, so just a light spanking more recently.  Perhaps, for dinner, they could to introduce an a-la-carte menu so people can dip their feet in but for me the food is a welcome and exceptional antidote to the pursuit of purism in Japanese cooking and the lunch is a steal.

Service is excellent.  Toshi and Peadar are native English speakers and Takeuchi-san and his other front of house member of staff can both speak English.

It's unlikely Ukiyo will ever have a high Tabelog rating so (at least for now) you're probably going to have to go on recommendations from people you trust.  And if you're looking for another then take that of super foodie and super hard to please Kevin Cheng, who gave it 4.1.  Now is the time to go while prices are low and there's no crazy 22-diner simultaneous start.  I've slightly raised my score following my most recent visit, based on the consistently excellent food.  I aim to visit here every two to three months.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1318/A131811/13287582/

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.5

📱 Booking: 🟩 A day in advance via TableCheck (credit card required) or Tabelog (2 or more diners only).  Same day lunch and dinner reservations by phone are possible but they were full on my April 2024 weekend lunch visit.

📍 Location:

CABO Uehara, 1-32-3 Uehara.  1 minute from Yoyogi-Uehara station South Exit 1.  The restaurant is right at the back of the development.
Map data ©2023 Google

📅 Visit April 2024

🕛 Lunch 3,800

Spring Vegetable Salad, Homemade Ricotta Cheese
Homemade Brioche
Spanish Mackerel and Spiced Broth
Charcoal Grilled Wagyu Beef, Preserve Turnip Rice
Smoked Vanilla Ice Cream

🍸 Drinks:

Tomato, strawberry
Apple, carrot, passionberry

💴 Damage: 7,502 (3800 + 2x1200 + 10% + 10%)
⏱️ Time taken: 1h15m

📅 Visit January 2024

🕛 Lunch 3,800

Winter vegetables salad, Carrot Bouillabaisse
Homemade brioche
Yellowtail and spice broth
Braised Black Hared Wagyu, Smoked onion risotto; potatoes
Passionberry Cake

🍸 Drinks:

Hibiscus
Nashi, whey

💴 Damage: 6,960 (3800 + 2x1000 + 10% + 10%?)
⏱️ Time taken: ~1h15m

📅 Visit December 2023

🕛 Lunch 3,800

Winter vegetables salad, Hazelnut cream
Brioche
Koshinaga maguro, clam and peppercorn broth
Braised Black Haired Wagyu, pumpkin risotto; potatoes
Apple sorbet, Blondie

🍸 Drinks:

Apple and pear
American cherry and beetroot

💴 Damage: 6,380 (3800 + 2x1000 + 10%)
⏱️ Time taken: 1h15m

📅 Visit September 2023

🕛 Lunch 5,000

Char-grilled Sanma with Cavolo Nero Salad
Brioche
Fried kisu, Vegetables and Romesco
Char-grilled Chicken Confit, Tarragon butter sauce; potatoes
Yoghurt sorbet with fig jam

🍸 Drinks:

Apple
Nashi

💴 Damage: 8,140 (5000 + 2x1200 + 10%)
⏱️ Time taken: 1h15m