Located in Roppongi Hills, L'atellier Joel Robbuchon is very up market. For this meal, everyone in the restaurant sat at the counter. The place is very elegant, but quite soulless as the room was quiet, as though everyone was afraid to have fun. Unlike most restaurants in Japan where the staff go out of their way to entertain and please guests, the staff here were perfunctory at best. Perhaps that's the way it is at fine dining establishments in Japan, but when trying to share how delightful the food was the staff just smiled and nodded, because the food was incredible. Especially the beef cheek. There are three lunch time offers of which we had C, one each from starter, main and dessert. The duck liver ravioli was an incredibly delicate work of art that was overpowered by too much parsley and insufficient duck liver. The broth was too salty for me. In a Japan first, this meal was unfinished. It wasn't good, simply not to my expectation. The beef check seemed to be going down the same road until adding a dollop of mash. Then it was heaven! On its own, the cheek is very succulent but the accompanying sauce is too acidic and salty. However, when combined with the mash, it balances out perfectly and takes on an entirely different personality. It is smooth, flavoursome and manages to accentuate the beef flavours while neutralizing the acidity. Pure bliss. The signature dessert of chocolate and chocolate ice cream was an artwork that didn't match the presentation. It looked beautiful, and tasted great but didn't excel the way it could have. There was nothing wrong with the dish at all, I simply hoped for a more intense chocolate flavor. Still good though. Afterwards, walking through Roppongi we agreed that it was a good meal but we've been more surprised eating at random, pokey restaurants staffed by one person (by our count there were 14 or 16 kitchen staff). We won't be going back in a hurry.