Pierre Gagnaire

Japan, 〒107-0052 Tokyo, Minato 赤坂1丁目12−33 ANAインターコンチネンタルホテル36F

It takes a bold man to open a top-end restaurant in a city already loaded with luxury. But everything about Pierre Gagnaire Tokyo is bold. Inside, executive chef Olivier Chaignon leads a team of Japanese and French chefs turning out cuisine à la Gagnaire, which means two, three or four dishes per course and flavours that shouldn’t go together, but absolutely do. The menu reads like culinary whimsy (tandoori grapefruit!), but Gagnaire’s gift is to pile flavour upon flavour, texture upon texture. He also proves adept at incorporating local ingredients, such as matcha and mizuame candy. Gagnaire wraps a wafer of nagaimo (Japanese yam) with Reblochon cheese in a vine leaf for a crunchy, oozing texture sensation, and gives us a masterclass in ‘umami’ with a liquorice-scented cream of morel topped with a black-rice bouillon. As Chaignon puts it: ‘This is Pierre Gagnaire cuisine, but with Japanese ingredients’. And that’s what makes this restaurant stand out, even in a gastronomic wonderland like Tokyo.