Florilège () – Tokyo, Japan

The usual preamble: I recently returned from a two-week trip to Tokyo, where I ate at 12 fine dining establishments (7 of which were sushiyas), as well as a number of casual spots. The summary of each of these visits can be found at the following link: https://www.reddit.com/r/finedining/s/fu79pmg4dp

A short walk from Tokyo Tower and Shiba kōen is Florilège, where French cuisine with a pronounced Japanese slant is served around a monolithic table that seats around a dozen guests on one side and around eight on the other, with the chef plating dishes in the centre. For those seated at the central table (there are, in addition, tables strewn around the perimeter of the restaurant), this is less immersive than it is communal; the sheer length of the table means that for most it will never really feel like you're part of the action…but then you have plenty of guests within arms' reach should you choose to lean towards gregariousness.

Opened in 2009 by chef Hiroyasu Kawate (who had previously worked as a sous chef at Quintessence in Tokyo), Florilège won two Michelin stars in 2018, and – like fellow Tokyo restaurant SÉZANNE – has repeatedly featured in the 50 Best annual listings. I booked for a 5.30pm dinner service one month in advance through TableCheck, for 23000 JPY + service fee. One of the cheaper menus of my trip (of the fine dining restaurants, at least), I found Florilège to be very worth it; I somewhat preferred this meal to SÉZANNE (the other French restaurant that I visited during my trip), primarily because the dishes achieved greater balance and were by-and-large more flavoursome. Sure, there wasn't a dish that hit the heights of the aformentioned's duck, but the menu at Florilège seemed to flow better.

That being said, my understanding is that the menu changes frequently. While a great many Tokyo restaurants are ardently seasonal, Florilège is even more so, given that hardly any ingredients are imported from outside of Japan. The menu that I had featured Hokkaido cheese liberally. Poireau (leeks)? Have some cheese. Potato? Cheese, please. Chicken? Alright, no cheese here. But there was so much white that [insert your own joke here because this is r/finedining and today I am not going to let the intrusive thoughts win]. Unwritten jokes aside, the predominantly pale palette was indicative of the lightness of touch and taste to the dishes on offer. The sweet potato and shiraae with tofu were both smooth openers, being soft on the palate, while the poireau that followed had sweetness from the leeks and a slight nutty tang from the cheese. The beets two ways with ikura was a nice step up in flavour, keeping things sweet while introducing a piquant quality from the beetroot (particularly the diced beetroot), the juicy ikura binding the ingredients together. Potato and shirako followed. While the shirako was nice enough, it wasn't the best that I had during my trip, and the potato confit could have done with much longer baking time, as this was nowhere near tender enough. Despite this one misstep, everything else was solid. The ravioli, with the casing made from udon noodles, were incredible, slightly toothsome and bursting with delicious eggplant. The main dish, the chicken, served with a chicken stock jus and pomme purée, was a masterclass in how to prepare poultry. Skin crispy, fat glistening, and the flesh itself being the most plump and juicy that I've yet to see bettered, this was an initially uninspiring main dish (chicken, of all birds?) that proved to be something quite special.

Though the desserts will not live long in the memory (unlike a couple of the savoury dishes), they were a by turns refreshing and hearty way to end a meal that straddled Japan's vast stores of produce. While on a dish-by-dish basis, Florilège is not much to write home about, a meal is more than just its individual parts; it is how they connect and relate, and it is here where an evening at Florilège succeeds.

Courses:

1. Sweet potato
2. Shiraae
3. Poireau
4. Beet
5. Potato
6. Eggplant
7. Eel
8. Chicken (pictured first)
9. To Balance
10. Pear
11. Chestnut
12. Petits fours