LATURE

The ayu fish in wellington style is the best i have ever have! Wish I can get the whole piece of it! Vension is well-cooked with juicy texture and balancing sauces. However, we were seated at the extended part of the restaurant which is like a bakery...and they are short of staff during lunch so attention is limited Definitely want to try dinner with wines 🍷

Lature is a Michelin 1-star French restaurant in Tokyo which also has a green star. Online reservation is straightforward. According to the building directory, the restaurant occupies both the basement and 2/F, but there is no clear sign for the entrance(s). The elegant 2/F dining room has a high ceiling. It is minimally decorated and well-ventilated. Tables are set with much space in between. The 5-course set lunch Menu LATURE (JPY 8,096/person) is aesthetically plated, but food quality is rather inconsistent. The seafood dishes are the most unimpressive. While the Marinated Red Shell and Ground Cherry lacks the natural freshness and sweetness, the Poired Saint Pierre Squid Ink Sauce is rough and tough. Highlights of the meal are the crispy Deer’s Blood Cookie and the juicy Roasted Venison with Seasonal Vegetables. Staff is green, inefficient, and unwelcoming! While they experienced difficulty in printing out the menu, their food introduction sounded like tape recordings. One of the waiters actually dropped a knife next to my cousin’s leg; luckily no one was hurt. The high rating online doesn’t reflect the poor service!

Grabbed a lunch via Pocket Concierge - aside from the fact that I had to pay to secure a reservation, i had no complaints. It is a fine dining set up sans white tablecloths, a more casual and not-stuffy vibe. Very interest choice of ingredients (deer from Hokkaido), beautiful presentation. I do think they could better and more clearly explain the dishes, however, which would really enhance the experience

We had the full dinner menu with beef as the main course. There were three main courses to choose from, however the entire table needed to other the same main course. Quite upset on this part. One of us wanted beef, and the other one was not so into beef, so end up half the table was not happy. Need to paper-rock-scissor and whoever wins gets to pick. I rarely encounter this when I go to French Michelin restaurants in Japan: the guests always get to pick their favourable main course. From the appetizer (macaroon), foiegras paste toast, creamy soup, bouch, sashimi covered in reddish, a veggie stew pot, pate, wellington… not that they were not tasty. Just none of them were memorable. Also, the restaurant didn’t have any menu. So basically you didn’t know what you would be eating. I only knew there were a lot of hunted meat like deer, etc. However, the waiter who described the dish in English, was not very fluent (could only understand barely half). Bread and butter was not good. I usually expect Michelin restaurant would home-made their own butter/spreadable. However, this block of butter seems like from supermarket. Very cold and hard, didn’t bother trying. The only good part of the meal was the beef. Very tender and juicy. The guests who wanted beef was happy.

I wish I never encountered this place as a recommendation to visit. Considering that it has a Michelin star, I was ready to eat delicious tasteful food but I was quickly disappointed. We got the "nature experience" It was awful. The good taste just wasn't there. Wrong seasonings, wrong cooked time, wrong side sauces, wrong pairing. The bread was the only part we enjoyed... Unfortunately, I had booked this dining experience for a friend's birthday which was approx. $200 a person ($600 overall) and was a waste of money. SAVE YOUR TIME & MONEY. Eating ramen for the night will be much more satisfying without walking away with a bad taste in the mouth. Luckily, the coffee that was served afterwards, took away some of the unwanted taste. I lost my faith in Michelin star restaurants now.

We had the chef menu with wine pairing. Food was delicious and well prepared. Wine pairing although not of the premium kind but the price point was very fair and choices were thoughtful. The chef sending us off after the meal was a nice touch. The restaurant can definitely contend for 2 stars should it wants to. Small improvements on the finesse, setting (space, utensils, noise level), plating etc would definitely get it there. Again very happy with the meal and very pleased to have discovered this.

During the past two years of living in Japan I think this was the best French restaurant I visited. The ingredients and technique incorporated really made this place stand out from the rest. You could tell that single dish was thought out carefully. Also despite having a small kitchen everything is operated systematically and it was a joy sitting at the counter and watching a team of passionate professionals work the magic. In addition, even though I cannot tolerate alcohol they have a good selection of wine that goes well with the course. 10/10 would recommend for a date, a family gathering or even a special treat for yourself.

This was the first non-Japanese food Michelin restaurant I visited during my stay in Japan. Given my high expectations, I also had high standards for this meal. Overall, I was not satisfied with the meal for the following reasons: 1. The most important issue was the restaurant's environment. I was seated at the counter, which provided a good view of the kitchen. However, since it was raining that day, every time someone entered, a strong gust of wind would blow in, which I found very uncomfortable. 2. One of the nine dishes, a mushroom and venison soup, was extremely salty, and there was even grit in the soup. I understand that taste preferences vary, but this soup's saltiness was comparable to the broth of some very salty ramen, so I don't think this was a matter of personal taste—it was simply too salty. Moreover, I can't accept a soup that has grit in it. 3. Another dish, a venison pie, while acceptable in flavor, was far too thin. The multiple layers of ingredients were so thin that when I tried to pick it up with a fork, it fell apart, preventing me from enjoying the combination of flavors as intended. If the goal was to taste each ingredient separately, there was no need to make it into a pie at all. The only parts of the meal I was satisfied with were the last two dishes: venison and duck. Both were made with excellent ingredients, cooked perfectly, and had rich textures and flavors. These were truly outstanding dishes. Since I am only in Japan for two months, I don't think I'll have another opportunity to visit this restaurant, but I hope my review is helpful.

I went for the fish lunch course, which featured beautifully presented fish - 3 courses of it - and a dessert. I enjoyed the first course in particular (with liquid nitrogen sauce?) as well as the smoked salmon. The final course, an ayu pie, was heavy and by this time, I was already full. Note that 3 courses of fish is a LOT of fish. Some vegetables would have been nice. So I can't say I was pleased about the lack of balance and diversity. I had also ordered two glasses of red wine. The first glass was served in a white wine glass and was poured in approximately half the amount of the second. That was also pretty disappointing.