Kissa Tanto — Restaurant in Vancouver

I saw a photo of the deep fried perch a few months before their Michelin award and so they went on my list of restaurants to try. It was not until our friends told us how much they enjoyed the interior that I started checking OpenTable regularly for reservation openings. 5:30 is when the restaurant opens. We got a table at the bar and lined up in the rain in Chinatown outside Kissa Tanto with other keeners. When the door finally opened, we all filed upstairs to the 2nd floor restaurant. My partner and I were pleasantly surprised by the interior: nice level of lighting, nice looking lighting fixtures, nice colors, a bar that is not cluttered. Seems like everything thing was placed there for a photoshoot – a comfortable space that is pleasant on the eyes. The images that came to mind were women in short hair with cloche hats or sparkly headbands dancing to Charleston music. THE FOOD. Since there were a couple of items that we did not desire in the fixed menu, we ordered a la carte. The Burrata Salad was supposed to come with organic greens, but they were served with beets instead. Even better! It turned out to be the best beets salad I've ever had. There were different types of beets, including dried, and fermented(?). All delightful, with their very own flavour, but an overriding tangy orange dressing. I particularly love the softened black pieces that almost taste like olives – I am guessing they are fermented. We received Michelin standard table service. Fresh plates and cutlery were provided for each dish, and the servers wiped our bar top between each dish. That really enhanced our anticipation of the next item. For carbs ('Tender to the Tooth'), we chose charcoal udon. The udon was made with semolina and spelt – very chewy, very delicious. The chilli butter provided just the right zest. The first two dishes were so good I wanted to order a repeat of the beets burrata and charcoal udon again. I guess that's a reason to come back again and hopefully, they still have these delicious dishes(!) Now for the deep fried perch. It was large enough for us, and so beautiful I didn't want to destroy it. We were told not to waste the meat in the cheeks but I couldn't identify where the meat was. In any case, it took us a while to extract the meat to make sure we do the fist justice. It was a fun thing to have, but next time, I might go for the sable fish instead, if nothing else, to reduce the amount of deep fried food in our diets! I can't write about the seasonal vegetables side dish because it was boring and I decided to focus on the fish. Now to dessert – it is not something we normally order due to our low sugar diet. But being able to get in to Kissa Tanto was a big deal and we weren't ready to leave yet. We are lactose intolerant, the ingredient of the Tiramisu is soy mascarpone. So, we tried it. Wow, so light, and not sweet at all – We breathed it in! We have been to other Michelin Star restaurants in Vancouver. But this was truly the best we've encountered so far. If I can give six stars I would. Truly an evening to remember and repeat! We did come back three times. We require consistency from restaurants we frequent. I removed one star for our experience the third time. We couldn't get the deep fried perch – apparently, they have not been able to source it. Also, the salad which we normally order was not great. The Radicchio leaves were bitter and make a poor showing for vegetable content. They do such a delicious beet salad that I'm surprised we were not fortunate enough to catch it. As much as we like this place, if we can't get the menu items we like, it hardly makes sense to repeat...

Warning, a long review, but worth the read

From start to finish, Kissa Tanto met (and exceeded) our expectations! Celebrating our friends 20th anniversary, we strolled up to the entrance, only to be greeted by Chef Watanabe, who indulged us with a photo after chatting with us for a few minutes about his passion for connecting with his guests. Walking up, we took in the atmosphere of the restaurant. Our group loved the decor which was minimal yet effective. Our friends kept commenting on how 'cool' it was.

We clearly had a different experience than some of the reviewers, as the staff were a HUGE part of what made our night so enjoyable. Attentive, engaged, and clearly passionate about what they do. We never felt pushed into decisions, or upsold on anything. Primarily taking care of us for the evening was Daniel, who kindly selected our dishes for the evening after we asked him to 'just choose' what he thought we would like. We have no allergies, and aren't squeamish, so we like to think we are easy to surprise with menu options. We chose cocktails; the highlight for me was my Shoreline Martini, it was 'crushable' as Daniel so eloquently put it. Our appetizers were the Tonno Mantecato, Carne Cruda, and Octopus Salad. Our table was divided on favourites, but we all agreed they were all delicous. Next was pasta, which the incredibly helpful/knowledgeable/fantastic Belinda helped us pair with a gorgeous bottle of white wine. Our table shared, Tajarin and Spaghettoni. The Japanese curry aroma and flavours in the Spaghettoni lingered in the best way possible. Both equally gorgeous, complex and yet simple in presentation, these dishes satisfied us all. For our main event, the Whole Fried Fish and 24hr Coppa, with a side of Jordan's Beans had been selected by Daniel. They did not disappoint. The fish while impressive (and the favourite of our friend) could not compete in my opinion, with the melt in your mouth and incredibly flavourful Coppa. The surprising awesomeness of Jordan's Beans however, stole the show. Their creamy and rich texture was the perfect complement to our main dishes. All of the staff who took care of us that evening, Daniel, Emma, Roberto, Simon and Belinda were by far some of the best I have seen, and I worked in the industry for over 15 years. All were passionate, knowledgeable, and put up with my husbands corny jokes with friendly smiles.

To complete the experience, we had another opportunity to chat with Chef Watanabe, who came to our table to see how we were doing. We learned more about Jordan's Beans, getting a bit of the story behind the passionate farmer of the beans themselves and what makes them so delicious.

This is the kind of experience I would have expected from an establishment of this caliber, and yet I still felt surprised by the intimate nature of it all. Yes, it was a little louder than we may have liked, but I can only assume people were discussing their dishes and day as eagerly as we were.

We left feeling like we had had enough, and felt like it was money well spent. Will we be back, absolutely! It was an absolute pleasure to dine at Kissa Tanto, as my mother always says 'make a memory', and...

A group of 6 of us went for to dinner for their Omakase experience. We were told it would be unique and that the chef would curate a meal specifically for our group. We were called days before asking for dietary restrictions so that the chef could go shop ‘specifically the day off for our group menu’. Upon arrival we were immediately asked if we wanted to ‘increase our budget’ from the original 155$ per person experience up to 300$ per person so that we could have more ‘elevated food options’. This was a bit surprising considering the price point we were already at and we thought the menu was already chosen specifically for our group. We stayed at the regular (already expensive) price point. The food itself was so underwhelming that by the end of the meal we couldn’t fake it any longer and when asked how our dessert was basically no one answered until one person awkwardly said ‘um, it was ok’. Each course was something you could already order on the menu so we had absolutely nothing truly unique to our meal. They served us ‘family style’ and each time an item came to the table we were confused as to where the rest of it was because we would each have maximum one to two bites of the dish. The portions for 6 people were so off, it felt like they were only sending food out for 3 maybe 4 people and we were expected to split it between 6 of us. There was a ‘24 hour sous vide’ octopus that was like eating rubber and a tiny morsel of lobster that also felt like eating rubber. Then we had the smallest piece of wagyu steak that should have been melt in your mouth but was also quite chewy. They brought out an entire deep fried rockfish at one point and when they explained the type of fish we all were shocked considering rockfish is not a delicacy. When you go fishing and catch a rockfish you throw it back, those are the bottom feeders of the ocean and you never take it home to eat. There was also another type of fish that came out and there was hardly anything to it but bones and cartilage. We were scraping it down to even try to give us each a bite. The pasta was good however, again we had enough for one spoonful each and one had at least 5 pieces of crab shell that some of us had to spit out. The ending was the most bizarre desert of some kind of frozen milk and my grandmothers canned peaches (that were not at all tasty) and then doused in the juice from said canned peaches. It was absolutely awful. We were still hungry at the end and felt like we had thrown 200$ each (with our drinks) into a fire. I wish I had better things to say about the food but it was terrible. Unfortunately the drinks were also beyond underwhelming with hardly any flavor and our whole group left and went elsewhere for more snacks and cocktails once we finished the meal. We wouldn’t recommend wasting your hard earned money on this place and will never return. A complete waste of an evening. Highly highly do not recommend this place and it’s shocking they have such great reviews. Atmosphere is lovely, service was subpar and...