Joujouka
๐ซ๐ท French / ๐ Kamiyacho
๐ Visits: 1 (2025)
Joujouka was a surprise "Selected" addition to the Michelin Guide Tokyo 2025: a restaurant that only opened in March 2024 was added before it had any Tabelog reviews. Had it not been for Michelin it would likely have passed me by. It's inclusions like this that are maybe the only thing I find exciting about The Guide now.
A "chef's table" seats maybe up to 10 but the chef runs the restaurant by himself so limits numbers. You can basically negotiate a start time for lunch or dinner. It's an omakase course priced at JPY 11,000 or JPY 13,000 that adds an extra dish.
First up smoked salmon and sour cream. There was too much sour cream and it completely overpowered the salmon, which was from a packet? 7.5/10. Next raw akai ebi and a red pepper and tsubagai soup. This was like the richest gazpacho ever. 8/10. Next boiled Bordeaux white asparagus, hotaru ika, olive oil, black pepper. This is not a complete dish. 7/10. Next lobster, Spring cabbage, broad beans, lemon and butter sauce. The lobster was good but, much like the last dish, it tasted exactly how you would imagine from the list of ingredients. 7.5/10. The fish course of shiro amadai and porcini cream risotto followed. To score higher the fish would need to be sumiyaki rather than pan-fried for better texture and flavour and there would need to be large pieces of cep (not really possible at this price). A generous 8. The main dish is wagyu rump and pomme puree. The beef could have had more flavour but it was not chewy and there was plenty of it. 7.5/10. Bread was a standard baguette and almost certainly not baked from scratch in the kitchen. Bread is replenished. Dessert was chocolate terrine. Texture from walnuts and puffed rice and a reasonably good quality chocolate. 8.5/10. You can choose espresso or black tea to finish.
A ridiculous amount of food for 11k with no service charge taken but apart from the amai ebi "gazpacho" it was a bit like a French meal an ambitious amateur might try to cook who didn't have a good recipe book. Classic and seasonal ingredients, cooked precisely but just a bunch of reasonably good quality produce clobbered together on a plate.
The chef is a nice guy, just not notably skilled. A restaurant for a big and cheap French dinner in a great location (foothills of Tokyo Tower) where you can eat at a time of your choosing.
๐ https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1307/A130704/13295319/
❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ 3.7
๐ฑ Booking: ๐ฉ Any easy booking by phone or DM in Japanese only, and now Tabelog. No English spoken.
๐ Location:
3-22-7 Toranomon. 5 mins east from Kamiyacho Station Exit 1 or 5 mins west from Onarimon Station Exit A6.
Map data ©2025 Google
Comments
Post a Comment