When a French restaurant with a Parisian-trained chef opened in my neighborhood, I was simultaneously intrigued and slightly intimidated. I walked past it many times, enjoying the occasional whiff of bread from the oven or stock from the simmering pots, but I could never bring myself to step through the door without the justification of some momentous occasion. When that finally came, in the form of my 10-year wedding anniversary, I made sure to go in armed with multiple 10,000-yen bills.
As it turned out, if we had cared to spend ￥5000 each on the full Concale course, there would have been nothing to stop us. But we could have a taste of the Continent for as little as ￥1580 for the Cassinetta course, pasta with salad and a hot drink. (Soup and dessert are an additional ￥300 each.) My thrifty wife chose this option; I walked the middle way with the Napoule course (￥2,980). The main difference between the prix fixe menus is that the Napoule offers a choice of fish or meat for a main course, and the Concale includes both.
Chef Minehiro Sakurai, who spent seven years in Paris, Cannes and Lyon, opened the festivities with an amuse-bouche, a stewed prune skewered with a strip of bacon. Next came an assortment of hot and cold appetizers: creamy pumpkin soup, salad in a cup made of spring-roll wrappers, freshly baked quiche, prosciutto, pâté de campagne, and tender escargot in a rich olive-oil based sauce. The pasta dish for the Cassinetta course was smoked duck in cream sauce; the main dish for the Napoule course was wagyu beef braised in a red wine sauce until it was so tender I could cut it with a fork.
My wife had a choice from among four desserts. She chose choux a la crème, and it was as far from the usual Japanese confection called by that name as Paris is from your local Beard Papa. As luck would have it, the dessert sampler that came with my Napoule course gave us the chance to taste two of the other selections: crème brulée with a hint of tea, and gateau au chocolat accompanied by crème anglaise with mango and raspberry sauces. Coffee, tea, or a garden in a pot – tea made from the leaves of ten fresh herbs – completed the meal.
Our only complaint was with the service, which was up to French standards for courtesy and efficiency, and Japanese for familiarity with European cuisine. When the waiter finally brought our appetizer course, he pointed to the prosciutto and proudly proclaimed it “salmon carpaccio”. And we weren’t in the market for a grand cru, but if we had been, it was doubtful that a sommelier would have been on hand to help us; the glass of red served with my meal had clearly come from a refrigerator rather than a stone cellar. But apart from that, we left feeling well satisfied, well celebrated…and with the ￥10,000 bills in my pocket still untouched.
The restaurant is a five-minute walk from Tokaidaigaku-mae station on the Odakyu line. Prices at lunchtime range from ￥1580 to ￥3800 for set menus, with a la carte options also available. Closed Wednesdays, except for parties by reservation. Those who insist on running up a bill of ￥10,000 or more can pay with Visa or MasterCard; more economical diners must pay cash.
