Aronia de Takazawa

[Romaney O'Malley]

This article appeared in the Sunday Times in the UK yesterday

Link to article

I did a few searches of the Japan forum but didn't turn up anything which surprised me and I wonder if it maybe because the place is so tiny therefore not a lot of people will have been.

We are coming to Japan for two weeks in April and so I am interested to see if anyone has been here and if so is it worth a trip? I am tempted to email an book it up based on this article but of course I have to check with the experts first

[thelobster]

I've never heard of it, but then again there are over 60,000 restaurants in town, so it's hard to keep track. But FWIW, the restaurant got fairly mediocre ratings in both Asku.com and Tabelog, two restaurant sites with user ratings. I guess the Michelin inspectors weren't the only ones to miss the charms of this place.

You might also want to check out Ryugin and Tapas Molecular Bar if you're interested in cutting-edge cuisine.

[JasonTrue]

Tokyo has plenty of these small places with obsessive, quirky chefs that "nobody" knows about, so it's not surprising that it's evaded the attention of Michelin and others.

The author of that piece, Matt Rudd, doesn't seem to have many other food-focused pieces, so it's hard to gauge his preferences and biases anyway.

If you can't find your way to that particular restaurant, there are countless other interesting options to try. The ones that tend to impress me the most in Japan are usually not doing terribly elaborate or innovative preparations; they just track down good ingredients and treat them well.

[Romaney O'Malley]

thanks both of you for your input - has put this in perspective it sounds like there are many places potentially in this category. I have to say that doing research on where to eat in Tokyo is proving to be one seriously overwhelming experience! but a nice problem to have

[Cabernet]

This article appeared in the Sunday Times in the UK yesterday

Link to article

I did a few searches of the Japan forum but didn't turn up anything which surprised me and I wonder if it maybe because the place is so tiny therefore not a lot of people will have been.

We are coming to Japan for two weeks in April and so I am interested to see if anyone has been here and if so is it worth a trip?  I am tempted to email an book it up based on this article but of course I have to check with the experts first 

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I would suggest that Takazawa is an extremely good chef and that Mr Rudd's original Sunday Times article is accurate. Cedric Béchade, long time talented protégé of Alain Ducasse at the Plaza Athenée and the truly outstanding chef proprietor of l'Auberge Basque near St Jean de Luz (recently nominated 'Discovery of 2008' by Gault Millau) has just returned from cooking in Tokyo.

With great enthusiasm he explained that his dinner at Ariona de Takazawa was "one of the two greatest meals of my life", the second being at Marc Veyrat. This extraordinary praise comes from a young dynamic chef whose experience encompasses so much, from Peter Goossens in Belgium to Pierre Gagnaire in Paris. If Cedric says this man is truly great, I am inclined to believe him.