Top Tokyo Eats: Pasta Pastimes
Plus craft coffee, a terrace wine bar and a secret sake salon
Hello from somewhere in the mountains in southern California. Joe and I are on a “creative retreat” to focus on our million-and-one projects. He’s currently measuring a bag of maps(?!)… and I’m writing to you all in the meantime :)
Before I left Tokyo for a whole two months, I took time to catch up with dear friends — which naturally involves eating great things — and also to expand my food knowledge by checking out a couple of new places.
Pasta might seem like an odd thing to seek out in Tokyo, but wow, the city’s pasta game is strong. In fact, great Italian food can be found relatively easily. As I believe I’ve written about before, there are striking similarities between the ways Japan and Italy approach their respective cuisines. Both favour using fewer ingredients, but expertly altering the ratio and putting the essence of each individual ingredient on a pedestal.
While a local cafe might serve up a mentaiko-cream-seaweed concotion that might constitute a truly “Japanese” pasta, there are some extremely intriguing high-end creations melding Japanese ingredients into Italian traditions, perhaps sacrilegious but most definitely satisfying…
No Code, Nishiazabu
Chef Fumio Yonezawa went to the US in 2002 and became the first Japanese sous chef at the Michelin-starred Jean-Georges’ flagship restaurant in New York. His venture “No Code” sticks precisely to that, defying codification and categorisation. It’s clear though that it’s heavily influenced by his time in the US but infused with Japanese ingredients, cooking techniques and aesthetics.
This is a place for an intimate dinner, just you and a dining partner (or solo!), the chef and handful of other customers at the eight seat counter. While a course meal counter can be booked by Omakase for a 6pm seating (and will set you back 19,800 JPY), the 9.15pm and 9.30pm seatings are à la carte and can be adjusted. There are excellent wines, but drinking alcohol is by no means obligatory as Yonezawa san was quick to offer other options (his English, by the way, is perfect!)
I had sneaked in with a solo reservation for a cheeky late night dinner adventure. The result was I tried three pastas, because one is simply not enough. I sampled an intriguing ayu (sweetfish) sauce pasta which uses the whole fish, cacio e pepe inflected with sweetly balanced onion, and a surprising winner, an excellent genovese with far more depth and subtlety than I anticipated.
Yonezawa san is known for his charcoal grilled wagyu, which sadly I didn’t try this time, but I kicked off the evening with an elegant corn potage with crab, spiked with chilli oil and served with salted focaccia.
Mamma Luisa's Table, Daikanyama
If you want hearty portions of truly excellent Italian food, this is your place. It’s just celebrated its tenth anniversary this March and it’s easy to see why it’s so beloved. Exuding a homely atmosphere, inside you’ll find Italy native and owner Pietro Andosoni, who does most of the cooking, serving up humungous portions whether you’re tackling antispasti, pastas, mains or dessert. You will also get to say hello to Gino, his Jack Russell.
We began with tomato and melon salad topped with a beautifully creamy burrata, before tackling truffle topped white asparagus with cheese. Then, it was pasta time — shrimp ravioli, flavours expertly melded into smooth parcels with the right amount of bite. We finished the mains with the masterpiece of truffle-topped tagliatelle. No further description is required.
Despite the mildly alarmingly large portions (you’ve been warned), I highly recommend stretching for dessert. The homemade tiramisu is pleasing but the pistachio panna cotta was a showstopper that prominently said “pistachio” in the boldest way possible. I didn’t know panacotta could be that bold. But it was and it proudly owned that plate. Until I destroyed it a little too quickly.