At Littleboboon, we pride ourselves in carefully selecting our restaurants when we travel. For our stay in Japan it took us quite some time because of the incredible offering and choices of restaurants and cuisines, especially in Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto.

In Tokyo, after our long research, we opted for the restaurant Shirosaka. We contacted the restaurant through Messenger and asked them if they would take a reservation for seven people for dinner, particularly because one of our parties was a ten years old gourmet boy.

To make a long story short, after several exchanges with the team of Shirosaka, they kindly accepted to accomodate our party of seven for a 9:30pm dinner.

As any fine dining restaurant in Tokyo, the place is not easy to find. Shirosaka is located in the Asakasa neighborhood not far from the Asakasa subway station.

With a little help from our GPS, we finally found the secluded restaurant with its front door lit by lanterns as we made our way on the stoned pathway to the entrance.

To our surprise, chef Hideki Li and his team were hosting the seven of us privately, there was no other guest there.

The ambiance of this cozy and intimate restaurant will transport you directly to Kyoto: an L-shaped nine-seat blond counter seats, floor-to-ceiling windows with a view of a miniature Japanese garden outside.

We immediately felt welcome. We were sure it had something to do with the charismatic and cheerful master sommelier Kota-san and the second in command of chef Hideki Li who ushered us to our seats (in perfect English) and handed hot towels and drinks.

After we introduced ourselves and thanked chef Li and his team for making the effort to have the seven of us for our special evening out, we selected a wine pairing meal. Kota-san suggested a great selection of sakes and wines to us, from which two bottles stood out in our opinion: the sake "Eau de Désir" 2018 and the amazing Torivilla Imaura cuvée Yuka 2004 in red.

Chef Li's cuisine is called Sumibi Kappo, a more informal style of Kaiseki dining. His tasting menu sparkles with dishes that were almost too pretty to eat, like his signature dish, a spherical rice cracker perched on a mount of diced vegetables. Lift the lid of the cracker and you’ll find a quail’s egg yolk and trout caviar nestled into a bed of diced tuna, sea urchins, and dashi gelee. The ebi-soba, a tangle of thin noodles tossed with fried sakura-ebi prawns and coated with oil infused with shrimp shells was very intense in flavor and delicious.

Everything at Shirosaka ("white hill" in Japanese) atmosphere is traditional yet laid-back, service is top, above and beyond in the homeliest welcoming way, while food and drinks are nothing short of amazing. To top it all off, dinner is quite reasonably priced compared to other Michelin star restaurants of similar caliber in Tokyo. 

We would like to thank chef Li and his team for their talent, their kindness, generosity and hospitality.

Shirosaka

6 Chome-3-9 Akasaka, Minato City, Tokyo

107-0052, Japon

Tel: +81 50-2018-0254

https://fr-fr.facebook.com