Lunch at L’Effervescence, Tokyo

L’Effervescence is a five minute walk from the charming Nezu Museum in Aoyama, making it an ideal spot for lunch after a morning museum visit.  At least, that was my plan – until I discovered that Nezu was closed during most of our visit for a change of exhibition.

So our lunch at L’Effervescence became the main attraction of the day, and it more than lived up to top billing!

The restaurant is chic and serene, with wide-spaced tables facing a glass wall that brings in the view of a small shaded garden.  In typical Japanese style, this makes the room feel cool and quiet and a million miles from the hot, busy Tokyo day.

The meal begins with a welcoming sake cocktail, poured into a shallow gold cup.  There is only one menu option, an eight course tasting; we also had the wine pairing, a mix of French wines and sake.

The first course was an amuse bouche of asparagus and Hamaguri clam, paired with frozen blood orange and mead.  This was followed by a playful take on a McDonald’s apple pie, which the chef has produced in 38 variations to date.  This one contained prawn, goat cheese, corn, and yuzu all combined in one very hot bite (as D discovered, despite the accompanying instructions that urge care!).

Next we had bonito sashimi combined with mountain vegetables and purple shiso flowers, a refreshing combination.

This was followed by another signature dish – and a rather unusual one, a small turnip simply cooked with butter and served with brioche and parsley.  The dish is called “a fixed point”, since the same kind of turnip is served every day to illustrate the way its flavor changes through the seasons.

I have to pause here to show the water we were drinking – it looks like it’s in a sake bottle, and in fact is water that’s otherwise used to make sake.

One of my favorite dishes was this fish (tilefish, also known as amadai), cooked in hot oil so that its scales burst into crystalline forms.  The contrast between the shatteringly crisp scales and the soft fish filet was extraordinary.

We finished with Japanese pure breed pork with Okinawan spinach and black sugar sauce, then loquat fruit (sort of like a tropical apricot) with soy milk ice cream and cocoa crumbles.

This was accompanied by a fortified sake, very interesting!

Lunch concluded with mignardises, and a surprise…

…a tableside matcha preparation!  The manager arrived with a cart and made each of us a cup of matcha in the traditional way, carefully measuring the matcha and whisking it with a bamboo chasen.

A meditative and calming ending to a lovely lunch.