Hortensia
🇫🇷 French / 📍 Shintomi
📓 Visits: 2
If you made it to Plaiga when Koga-san was there the food will look familiar and the structure of the menu is similar.
The first amuse is a mousse of fermented Tsuyahime rice, pickled vegetables, uni and chrysanthemums. This dish has everything: sweet rice, salty uni, texture from the pickles and bitterness from the flowers. It's the only time I've ever eaten a dish where edible flowers really added something. 10/10.
A selection of canapes follows. Less detailed notes for visit #1: shirako, salmon, tai, lobster, mackerel. More detailed for visit #2:
Zuwaigani ravioli, lobster cream
Okra, feuilles de brick, aori ika
Saba rillettes
Baniku, caviar
Rum raisin foie gras, pistachio, orange
Maguro, spherification of beetroot
Tomokoroshi monaka
An incredible amount of work and flavour in every bite and not just eye candy.
The third dish is a vegetable dish. Carrot on visit #1, green beans on visit #2. This is consistently the least successful of the savoury dishes. The vegetables are overworked and Koga-san loves making a faux vegetable from cocoa butter which I honestly find vile. A definite example where less would be more.
A seafood dish follows. I'd have given the kegani, turnip, dash and cream dish 10/10 on visit #1 if it had been served hot instead of chilled. It was a cold day so I think a hot version of this dish would have worked better.
Following that the foie gras dish or a seasonal dish of ayu on visit #2. The foie gras was served six ways:
Wasabon, vinegar miso, myoga
Cocoa butter
Orange chips, pistachio
Blackcurrant, mint
Sweet potato, black pepper meringue
Kaki, pickled daikon
With the exception of the cocoa butter variation, all of these were excellent.
The fish course follows. Kinmedai and lobster on visit #2, which was very good but relatively underwhelming. Yoichi anko, kimo croustillant, sumi bouillabaisse on visit #2.
The main dish is always Hida beef. First cured in kombu for a day and then washed in white wine. After that it's grilled in a kiln for two hours. Finally, it's basted in the pan with butter, port, wine, honey and onions. I've eaten a lot of good beef but this was the best I'd ever had and by a long way. The complexity of flavour was incredible and I never thought that there could be that much of an improvement over simply grilling what's already some of the world's best beef and serving it with salt. Unfortunately it wasn't quite as good on visit #2. This time it was served with beef tongue so the steak was smaller (though I know I got a slightly larger than normal portion on visit #1) and it didn't have the same impact as first time. There's no shortage of process in the garnishes: a four-variety potato 'millefeuille', gobo croustillant, celeriac and truffle puree, transparent beetroot tuille, but it's difficult for these to live up to the beef.
The final savoury courses are a rice dish and a broth made from the vegetable scraps. IIRC you can specify what size of rice you'd like. I've enjoyed both rice dishes but I'm still waiting for the crab 'omu pilaf' to make a return. An outstanding campagne, made in the kitchen, is included with excellent olive oil.
Desserts are probably the weakest part of the course: more refreshing than indulgent and raw unskinned apple is not acceptable at any table.
The meal ends with a choice of tea or good coffee (not pictured) and some petit fours. It's a massive meal and the potato madeline is a little too much.
Koga-san doesn't speak English but will use a translation device if you don't speak Japanese so you don't miss out on the extended explanation of the dishes. A bilingual menu is provided for you to follow along. There's no simultaneous start. Depending on other bookings your meal might be synchronized with other diners. All the other diners for the night were to arrive after I'd left on my second visit so the meal was a lot quicker.
Hortensia is the pinnacle of modern French technique combined with outstanding Japanese ingredients. There are more classic French restaurants in Tokyo with equally outstanding cooking but there's nowhere else serving food as modern as with such an abundance of expensive ingredients.
The original Hortensia never earned a Michelin Star and neither did Plaiga Tokyo, though soon after Koga-san left and the menu was revised, Plaiga Tokyo was added as one of the inaugural "Selected" restaurants in the Michelin Guide 2024. Hortensia will be featured in the Michelin Guide Tokyo 2025 which will be announced on Thursday 17th October. The restaurant's regular holiday is on Wednesday but they are closed on Thursday 17th so it's reasonable to guess they've been invited to the ceremony and hence will receive a Star rather than just be "Selected". Whatever, it's too little too late.
📅 Visit July 2024
[Fermented Tsuyahime rice, pickled root vegetables]
Amuse
Jardin de légumes
Green Beans Garden Tart
新緑豆畑のタルト ~各地より届いた春の息吹~
Black ear shell
Yuba, cider
北海道蝦夷鮑 湯葉 シードル ~海の生態系~
Ayu
Kagabuto cucumber, moroheiya
和歌山 鮎 加賀太胡瓜 モロヘイヤ 〜伝統とはしり~
Red bream
Zucchini flower, lobster
静岡下田の金目鯛 花ズッキーニオマール海老 ~旬と凝縮~
Hida Wagyu Beef
Potato mille-feuille, wasabi
飛騨牛フィレとタン 4種じゃがいも 山葵 〜日本の宝〜
Yumegokochi rice risotto
Sakura shrimp, wild plants
山形夢ごこち米 桜海老 山菜 ~旨味と香り~
Lychee
Pineapple, rose
沖縄パイナップル ライチ バラ 〜濃縮と余韻~
Café ou thé
📅 Visit January 2024
Fermented Tsuyahime rice, pickled root vegetables
Amuse
Carrot Déclinaison
Neuro Kegani crab, ensemble of Nobeji turnips
Chilled Foie gras variations
Hakodate Anglerfish liver Rossini, Aroma of Garland Chrysanthemum
Hida Wagyu Beef, soft burdock root gobo and consomme, fresh wasabi
Niigata Milky Queen ojiya, -196°C Sesame Powder
Tarte tatin with 2 apple varieties sparkle of Nakano and red gems
Coffee or Tea
this restaurant is on my short list for November trip! However there are too many good French places to pick from and I am still debating until I saw your review. I’ll have to pick between this Naoto.k, how would you compare these two?
ReplyDelete