April 03, 2006
Tokyo's best restaurants: 東京最高のレストラン
I've never had much time for the Tokyo restaurant guides put out by overseas companies like Zagat, and now I have a definitive, worthy opponent for them: if you read Japanese, get 東京最高のレストラン.
Written by six top food writers (I should disclose that one of them, Keiko Moriwaki, is a friend/work associate of my spouse) and now in its fifth year, the guide picks out everything from the big, glittering and obvious to the small and obscure, taking in most conceivable genres along the way. The focus is on the traditional and most common cuisines -- French, Italian, Chinese and Japanese (plus a section for sushi) -- though the rear of the guide provides a more finely broken down section of recommendations by sub-genre, which goes some way to remedying the book's overall deficiency in Asian/ethnic/obscure foods.
However, this is a minor quibble considering how well the book does what it does. The main strength is an easy-to-understand scoring system and the fact that many of the recommendations either feature a separate review by two different writers or at least have multiple sets of scores, often by up to four people. Rather than simply providing averaged scores, the ability to see the ranges gives you more information about places where opinions are divided. Scores are assigned on the basis of food, service, interior design, value for money and "bonus" (awarded by the reviewers based on how much the place impressed them or had something that set it apart from the competition).
All the bases are covered in terms of the big boys like Joel Robuchon's Ebisu chateau or Gordon Ramsey's new place at the Conrad. Following the list of prominent newcomers comes the transcript of a discussion between the writers on each of them, where they're surprisingly candid in picking out flaws. Someone comments on Robuchon's tone-deafness when it comes to matching dishes to seasons, exemplified by his overuse of butter and cream on the lunchtime menu in midsummer: "You wonder if they've got windows in the kitchen." And despite giving Ramsey moderately good scores, they slay the unbalanced space, the behind-the-times emphasis given to the chef's table, and the overpriced winelist, and wonder at why he gets Michelin stars with this kind of stuff. If you're into food, you can while away a decent amount of time just reading through this section.
Having either tried a couple of the book's suggestions or been to them before buying it (Butagumi in Nishi-Azabu and Totoki in Ginza) I look forward to getting round to a few more.
Recommended.