French influence in Tokyo

Tokyo is a fascinating city. Its population of over 37 million makes it the world’s largest and it probably boasts restaurants with as many different styles of cooking as there are in London.

The influence of France on its cooking style has been obvious for the past 50 years while young Japanese chefs have been making their presence felt in the restaurants of Paris for a good 30 years. I recall a conversation between the late Jean-Claude Vrinat, then the owner of Taillevent, and Alain Ducasse in which they both agreed that the very best baguette that they had ever eaten had been baked in Tokyo. And this two-way traffic is still impressively strong.

Mardi Gras and Cellar Door Aoyama are two informal restaurants in Ginza and Minato-ku respectively. Each has a strong French influence although both chefs are Japanese-born. Neither is located on the ground floor – such is the pressure on Tokyo’s restaurant business of costly rents – and both are the very personal expressions of the passions of their founders. In Mardi Gras this is for the culinary ambitions of the chef/proprietor. In the case of The Salon @ Cellar Door Aoyama it is the passion for wine of the Birkenhead-born patron Carl Robinson and his wife Jeanette.

It took me a while to find the entrance to Mardi Gras even though I was on the right street and Google Maps told me I was immediately outside. The only clue is a discreet sign displaying the letters MG, but even then the entrance wasn’t obvious until my eyes found a set of steps going down. And what a set of steps!

Steep, made of concrete and not an easy climb for anyone over six foot, these are quite an obstacle for any customer. I did not envy the delivery driver whom I saw delivering a couple of cases of wine.

But do persist. This is the restaurant of a dedicated chef Toru Wachi (below) who has at least two great passions: French cooking, particularly of red meat although he is also a dab hand with pastry, and blues music. The restaurant’s name derives from Watchi’s love of the music of North America’s Deep South.

Once you have descended, you are in a space that is very particular even in this crowded city. At one end of the narrow room, just wide enough for two tables and capable of seating no more than 22, is the source of Wachi ’s music and much else, which he described as his ‘salon’. At the other end is the kitchen, big enough for Wachi and his one assistant. On show, among the essentials of any kitchen, was something that immediately caught my eye.

This, on the counter, was obviously the fruit of this morning’s work. It was a freshly made tart, the bright yellow fruit cut in half, glistening and exposed. I expressed my admiration, an approach that was greeted with a succession of smiles and bows as Wachi explained that these were kinkan which my Dictionary of Japanese Food translated as kumquats.

We sat down with several Japanese winemakers, wine writers and educators and our lunch, on a Saturday my favourite meal of the week, got under way. While the first course of mixed hors d’oeuvres showed the kitchen’s dexterity, it was the main course that showed where the kitchen’s heart really lies.

Wachi’s assistant suddenly appeared standing by my shoulder. In his hand was a tray holding a large piece of beef which he proudly displayed before returning to the kitchen. The beef was then delivered to us all as a large, thick slice alongside some delicious, small potatoes sautéed to a crisp with a clove of garlic. The meat was exceptional, full of flavour, and required a certain amount of chewing to release all of its charms.

The pastry of the tart was exceptional. After lunch Wachi kindly supplied the recipe (which I've shared at the bottom of the page) as well as the answers to several questions. Firstly, that his location has been a restaurant for the past 30 years. Secondly, when I asked him about the steepness of the stairs, he replied that they are looking for customers ‘with a strong body’. And as to finding his restaurant, he replied, ‘Just call me from Ginza station and I will pick you up.’

Finding Cellar Door Aoyama’s entrance also posed a challenge. Like all the restaurants we went to in Japan, it was down a side street. But as we were guided by Citymapper towards a modern building, was the entrance off to the right or to the left? And was it really upstairs? We climbed the stairs, remembering that in Asia a great deal of retail is not on the ground floor, and entered what for any wine lover has to be an Aladdin’s cave (see main picture above).

The shop carries the fruits of the past 30 years of Jeroboam, the wine import business of Carl and Jeanette Robinson. Both of them were born in Liverpool but met in New Zealand where their parents had emigrated in the late 1950s as £10 Poms. He then followed her to Japan where they settled and started in the wine business, originally backed by and now in partnership with Pol Roger, Hugel and the Perrin family, the owners of Château de Beaucastel.

The large room dedicated to wine is attractively replete with wines the Robinsons import directly from wine families around the globe. It is here that wealthy Japanese, Chinese and Korean wine enthusiasts come for their bottle of Petrus, trusting here in the wine’s authenticity.

Through a set of double doors you face a couple of long tables that can seat 24 and to which one can bring any bottle from the shop without any additional mark-up. ‘We opened here with the sole intention of boosting the shop’s sales’, Robinson admitted with admirable honesty.

The food comes from a tiny, cramped kitchen but from an obviously talented, small brigade led by chef Ogata (seen above with Robinson) who trained in the late Bernard Loiseau’s restaurant in France and was extremely impressive. A pâté de campagne was served as a thick slice of succulent meat; a plate of firefly squid below was highly seasonal.

The sautéed bamboo shoots with our main courses were another springtime speciality and a dish of spicy steak tartare made from horse meat was beautifully seasoned. Best of all was the dish of roast loin of French veal served with morels and broad beans and a creamy mushroom sauce below that left me wondering whether we were in Paris or Tokyo.

The wines we drank determined the answer. We began with a Mignon Boulard champagne before moving on to taste a 2022 Mandelberg Weissburgunder from Dr Wehrheim, a Franken Silvaner from Luckert and a rare bottle of Bell Hill Chardonnay 2019 from New Zealand, and finished with a gem of a 2012 Côte Rôtie from the original Jamet. We wouldn’t have been treated to such a range in Paris.

We slept unusually well that night.

Mardi Gras 8-chōme 6-19, Ginza, Chuo City, Tokyo 104-0061; tel: +81 (0)3-5568 0222

Cellar Door Aoyama Passage Aoyama 2F, 2-chōme 27-18, Minamiaoyama, Minato City, Tokyo 107-0062; tel: +81 3 6804 5200

Kumquat tart

Sweet pastry
Makes enough for five 18-cm-diameter moulds

200 g butter
500 g cake flour
150 g sugar
1 egg
2 egg yolks

Blend all ingredients roughly in a processor. Keep in a crumbly state. Divide into portions and store in the freezer. Thaw and use as needed.

Almond cream

200 g butter
200 g powdered sugar
4 eggs
225 g ground almonds Bring the butter to room temperature. Add the powdered sugar and mix until combined. Gradually add the egg yolks and mix well. Mix in the ground almonds in several batches.

Making the tart

Press the dough into a tart mould. Chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Remove from fridge and prick the crust all over with a fork. Pipe the almond cream into the mould. Arrange 10–15 kumquats sliced in half over the top. Bake in a 150 *C oven for 1–1.5 hours. Let cool before serving.

Recipe courtesy of Toru Wachi, chef of Mardi Gras in Tokyo. 

Photo at top of Cellar Door Aoyama, courtesy of the restaurant/wine shop.

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Japan France

Nick Lander