sio — Restaurant in Tokyo

Sio is a one star Michelin restaurant in the Yoyogi Uehara neighborhood and is now one of my favorite restaurants in Tokyo.

Sio serves both lunch and dinner, but for a while they even served breakfast! The restaurant had been on my bucket list for a long time and I finally made it there for their breakfast service, which has unfortunately been discontinued as of August 2021.

Sio’s “morning dinner” (朝ディナー) was developed so that people who normally don’t have the time to dine out in the evenings would still be able to enjoy the same tasting menu as those who are eating out later in the day (in fact the restaurant took reservations as early as 8:30 in the morning). The tasting menu was slightly shorter and cheaper than their lunch and dinner menus, but included some of the restaurant’s signature dishes as well as upgraded versions of classic breakfast items such as the cheese omelet and the traditional Japanese breakfast served with miso soup, fish, rice, and picked vegetables. Favorites were the omelet, pork, the Japanese breakfast, and the “sio” (salt) ice cream.

The food and service were both excellent, but above all I was completely blown away by owner-chef Shusaku Toba’s creativity and vision to transform the restaurant industry. The nonalcoholic beverage pairings (tea pairings) went really well with the meal as well.

Although they are no longer serving breakfast, I would still recommend that people come here for lunch or dinner. Chef Toba did say that he will start offering his breakfast menu again in the near future so I really hope that I can go back and try the breakfast again because the omelet and the Japanese breakfast, two items that are likely not on the lunch or dinner menus,...

Very relaxed atmosphere, can see the chefs at work depending on seating (seats at most 20 people inside). The servers were very friendly and some had better English than others, but none were afraid to help us regardless of their proficiency. There were open to answering our questions about each course.

The tasting menu we ordered consisted of local flavours such as chestnut cream, sukiyaki foam, and horse sashimi. Our favourites were the chestnut cream pork ravioli which had tons of flavours that all balanced well to provide a savoury dish and the cut of wagyu with black garlic puree, sukiyaki foam, and a roasted mushroom which was umami heaven. There were Italian/French influences throughout the menu.

Overall, we enjoyed the meal and would come back next time...

In a cosy French style layout and accompanied by a high quality and attentive service team, a dinner at Sio is definitely a memorable fine-dining experience. The 10-course dinner was a performance made of incredibly balanced and wide flavour and texture profiles focusing on key quality ingredients : an apparently simple tamago kake gohan transformed in an experience. Apart a little reservation on the last gelato dish that could use extra elements for texture and taste as a plated dessert, that was a flawless...