Kotaro Hasegawa Downtown Cuisine

⭐⭐⭐⭐

🇫🇷 French / 📍 Okachimachi

📓 Visits: 1

Ask most people what the most difficult French restaurant reservation in Tokyo that doesn't require an introduction is and they'd answer Quintessence. Now that is difficult to reserve but with reservations taken every day for dates up to three months in advance you just need to be persistent and use restaurant holidays to book to your advantage, and there's always Omakase. Quintessence (dinner only now) also does up to 60 covers a night so there's potentially more availability every day. Kotaro Hasegawa Downtown Cuisine (KHDC), on the other hand, only does 8 covers a night. Reservations are taken by phone on the 1st of the month for dates up to two months in advance and they're so popular that by the time you get through (if you do at all), not only will they be full but they won't even waitlist you because they have too many people waitlisted. So why is KHDC so popular? First a detour.

Hiramatsu Inc. is hardly known outside Japan but within Japan they operate around 25 restaurants and cafes including the iconic Caffe Michelangelo in Daikayama and some of the most high-end resort hotels in the country. In addition, they are licensed to use the Paul Bocuse brand domestically. Hiramatsu was founded by Hiroyuki Hiramatsu who, before returning to Japan, became the first Japanese chef to win a Michelin Star in France just four months after opening his eponymous restaurant in Paris in 2001. Interestingly, the original Restaurant Hiramatsu in Hiroo is now operated by a separate company, the Hiramatsu Research Institute, along with Ryo Sho in Kyoto.

Kotaro Hasegawa worked for Hirmatsu Inc. for 16 years, working his way up to Executive Chef in 2016. In addition, he represented Japan at the 11th and 16th Bocuse d'Or in 2007 and 2017 and is now co-chair of the Japan Bocuse d'Or Academy. By the way, the best Japan has ever done in the Bocuse d'Or was 3rd place in 2013. The lead chef then was Noriyuki Hamada who's now head chef at Hoshinoya Tokyo.

Long story short: although you may have never heard of him, chef Kotaro Hasegawa is a big deal in French fine dining in Japan.

The second reason why this restaurant is so hard to book is the location. It's in the Satake Shotengai near Okachimachi. That might seem a strange choice of location for a French fine dining restaurant and its elegant exterior is a huge contrast to the rest of the shops in the oldest shopping arcade in Tokyo and the second oldest in Japan (the oldest is the Katamachi Shotengai in Kanazawa). But Hasegawa-san decided to locate his restaurant in the area in which he grew up. So the restaurant gets a lot of footfall and literally standing out from the crowd, if you're a local you could not help but be intrigued.

The final reason why KHDC is so hard to book is because it's so cheap. There are various reasons why particular restaurants are difficult to book or have long waits in Japan but value for money is a big one. Originally 5 plates for JPY 5,500, 6 plates for JPY 8,800 or 7 for JPY 11,000, since the beginning of this year only the most 'expensive' course is now available.

It was hard to fault the food and there really isn't much to say about it. As you'd expect from a chef with Hasegawa-san's background, every dish contained multiple elements, techniques, textures and flavours. Moderately expensive ingredients were included and were high quality. This was proper haute cuisine. Bread (brought in frozen from France) was replaced without asking and good.

It's a very simple restaurant inside. The plates are particularly beautiful: all Japanese and some antique. Drinks are cheap as well: no glass of alcohol will cost you more than 2,000 yen, most non-alcoholic drinks are 600 yen and there's no bottle of wine listed above JPY 10,000.

Rarely is anything or anywhere fault-free. The dessert was quite simple and needed a pastry element to add texture. The whipped butter wasn't very good. The room was a bit cold and the plates were not hot. But these are (relatively) minor complaints, easily fixed and at this price you could maybe forgive all of them. So if it's so cheap and there's little to fault with the food then why would I not go back? The reason was length of time. Hasegawa-san's wife attends to front-of-house but chef Hasegawa does all the cooking alone. Such intricate food takes a long time to make so the course took the best part of three hours with at least a 20 minute wait between each course. I just don't want to sit through meals that make me fidget.

If you've got the endurance required to land a seat here and remain in it then you'll be rewarded with the best value French fine dining dinner course in Tokyo. Kotaro Hasegawa Downtown Cuisine was added to the Michelin Guide Tokyo 2024 but did not win a Star. I'd love to know the reasoning but my meal was worthy of a Star and some dishes could be worthy of two.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1311/A131101/13229542/

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.3

📱 Booking: 🟥 See above. By phone from 9am on the 1st of each month but your chances are slim to none.

📍 Location:

📅 Visit February 2024

18:53 Aori ika, potato, caviar
19:18 Kaki risotto, lobster
19:38 Gyutan, mushroom cannelloni, mushroom foam
20:07 Hirame, shiro mirugai, beurre blanc, basil oil
20:36 Ezo shika, blackcurrant sauce
21:01 Deconstructed strawberry cheesecake
21:07 Coffee (or tea)

💴 Damage: about 16k, the cost of wine shared
⏱️ Time taken: course: 2h45m, out: 3h35m

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