Florilège — Restaurant in Tokyo

Florilege is a two-michelin starred French-Japanese restaurant in Tokyo. Upon entry, the atmosphere really fit the theme. As florilege translates to flower arrangement in English. even the bathroom and the hand towels had a floral aroma. The atmosphere and surrounding environment were nice and featured the open kitchen. Below is a summary of the dishes we had on the lunch tasting menu: Rice Mousse on Steamed Egg: A salted egg custard accompanied by a rice mousse. The rice mousse had distinct naturally sweet nodes that paired well with the salted egg custard. I liked the way the restaurant used all components of the egg, including the shell for plating. The presentation of this appetizer as well as the layers of various flavors remarkable artistic execution. Beet Root: Featured beet root prepared in three ways: beet root chips, tartare, and jelly, all of which act together creating a harmony and balance of textures in the dish. Tomato jus on the side adds acidity, while the saltiness of the ekura and the beet root's inherent sweetness create a delightful blend. Overall, a very creative and well thought out vegetarian dish. Eggplant Ravioli: Showcasing eggplant in puree, foam, and ravioli forms, enriched with cheese and kombu powder. The smooth, airy foam has the flavor of eggplant and holds hints of the cheese powder. The ravioli skin has a great al dente texture with sufficient filling. Having the seaweed oil adds umami flavors to the dish. This was a personal favorite of mine. Cookie with Chinese Cabbage: The crisp paired with the acidity of this cookie served as a palate cleanser. Bread Selection: We were served both sake yeast bread and wheat bread, each of which had unique yet different flavor profiles. I personally enjoyed the bread. It had a delightfully chewy and soft texture. The soybean butter was unlike anything I have ever had and was delicious. Turnip Wellington: Featuring tunip confit, turnip puree, and turnip in its natural form. The sauce had a naturally sweet flavor profile and foamy consistency. The pastry met the standard of any wellington. This dish was extremely creative, but I felt that the flavor profile was too basic and simple. It featured the naturally sweet turnip. Apart from the pastry from the wellington, the textures of the dish were also pretty uniform throughout, which did bore me out after the first couple bites. Duck with Mushroom Wrap: Fatty duck paired with a wrapped array of umami-rich mushrooms (of various types). As seen, the duck was basted in piping hot oil to achieve that crispy exterior. The tender, flavorful, and juicy duck was paired with a red wine jus, which had the perfect amount of acidity and sweet balance. The mushroom wrap was surprising, in the sense that it was extremely tasty. It really showcased the kitchen’s expertise and ability to create tasty vegetarian dishes as well. Desserts: • Mousse with Hojicha Ice Cream & Roasted Matcha Crackers: Crackers had a strong charred matcha flavor. The crackers along with the Hojicha ice cream and sweet potato mousse was a good showcase of Japanese classic dessert ingredients. • Apple Pie: Apple mousse, apple slice, apple sauce, all on pastry. An interesting take on apple pie. The caramelization was a tad bitter for my liking. • Hojicha Waffle: Strawberry jam & jelly with hojicha flavored waffles. Strawberries were so sweet. Waffles were airy and incredibly crispy. Hojicha flavor was evident. This was served with black tea.

In summary, I thoroughly enjoyed the three-hour meal, especially given its affordability considering the restaurant's status as a two Michelin-starred and former inclusion in Asia’s 50 best restaurants. The restaurant's innovative fusion of local Japanese ingredients with French cooking techniques was innovative. I like the way they use fresh ingredients by presenting them in two to three different ways, elevating the dish while respecting the ingredient's essence. Overall, it was a good dining experience, despite the extended intervals between courses, which might have stemmed from...

Florilège was a beyond disappointing experience. There were multiple dishes that I simply did not want to finish, such as a weird beet dish, a bitter pear dessert, and an absolutely bizarre beet rose which I'll come back to later. Several other dishes had side elements that were confusing and didn't work, and should have just been left out entirely.

There was only one noticeable protein dish among all the courses, a venison main that was absolutely delightful. The rest of the meal was heavily vegetable-forward, which was disappointing primarily due to the lack of variety or creativity in the menu construction. The meal didn't really have a consistent through line, except that the chef kept sending us out the same ingredients over and over without even bothering to transform their flavors in interesting ways. Between the food and drinks, we probably received something with beet in it four times, and there were multiple appearances of celeriac as well. It felt like the restaurant ran out of ingredients and just threw something together that they hadn't planned on serving.

The wine pairing was uninspired and didn't actually enhance the food. The wines were good, but they didn't connect with food on our plates. There was also a random beer I had to send back, which got replaced by a delightful orange wine which was the second best drink of the entire pairing (and I wouldn't have even gotten it if I'd liked the beer). The one bright spot for the drinks wasn't even wine, it was a blend of two sakes that perfectly enhanced a daikon dish. My dining companion got the non-alcoholic pairing, which was actually much better than mediocre wine pairing, and featured several drinks that were significantly more interesting than the wines. There was only one red wine the entire meal, and we didn't get anything at all to pair with dessert, such as a sweet wine, port, etc.

The end of the meal was led by what looked almost like a fresh pear tart, but was really just slices of pear on top of a weird, not altogether tasty moose, on top of a terrible bitter cracker-crust thing that I left on the plate as inedible. I couldn't get the taste out of my mouth for fifteen minutes, and I only had one bite. There was then a delicious rhubarb dish that I loved, but it was followed by one of the most bizarre moments of the meal. They brought out beet chips shaped like a rose, which were quite beautiful but tasted disgusting. To make matters worse, they only brought it to our table as a special treat, and then after we took a bite and realized it was not good, they charged us 1,600 yen for the pleasure on top of our prepaid meal. Then, with the final plate of small bite desserts, they served us undrinkable coffee and herbal tea.

The overall experience was beyond a letdown, it felt like I got ripped off. Looking at past menus for this restaurant revealed much better variety, creativity, and uniqueness in the dishes, and this meal fell completely flat on its face. The main dish was near perfect, but after that there were only a few dishes I'd consider good, and only because they didn't have the obvious flaws of the other dishes, not because they were standout plates I'll savor the memory of. It's astonishing to me that anyone thinks Florilège is the 36th best restaurant in the world. That meal was so poor, I wish I could get...

I dined at Florilege for lunch mid November last year. In summary, it was very disappointing and another example of an emperor wearing no clothes. Go elsewhere. This was my fifth trip to Japan involving many excellent restaurants. My alarm bells were ringing on reading that the chef has had a vegetarian epiphany similar to the chef/owner at Eleven Madison Park in NYC. On seeing that the main course choice could still be "meat", I booked in anticipation of a great meal. Mistake. The restaurant has moved into a very rich hip young neighborhood and the whole experience is consistent with that. First, I must say that the lunch price is very reasonable...congratulations. It's one big open room with a massive "communal" table but strangely, the cooking is done out of site. I don't see the point of such a setup and prefer individual tables. In any case, the cool young couple next to us didn't feel inclined to speak with oldies such as us. The Instagram crowd will love this place. Our welcome was underwhelming in the extreme. We were just another customer to them. I asked for the wine list only to be told there isn't one....unbelievable in a two star Michelin. Apparently the hipsters prefer cocktails or a glass of wine from pre opened bottles. I don't. No class. No Japanese wines were offered. The food serving started very promptly and continued so that dining time was short. The courses were mainly very boring and consisted of differnent versions of a soft white mash. This included the "butter" served with the soft bread mush. Edentulous diners will be delighted. The highlight was the "meat" dish of course...incredible quality duck cooked to perfection. Wow, this probably exemplified what the restaurant was like pre vegetarian. Every other dish including desert was forgettable. The hipster guy next to me enquired about and ordered an "orange" wine whilst his female partner had a cocktail with the meal. Since when do cocktails match with good food? There you go. That's my review after consideration for two months. Very disappointing, but like Den they are successful for the wrong reasons. Life is too short to...