▪️Trompette - Nihonbashi, Tokyo (French / ¥15K)
"What is your favorite restaurant in Tokyo" may be an impossible question to answer, but every time I am asked this question, my two dinners at Trompette keep flashing before my eyes nonetheless. How does one describe the feeling when biting into the Bistro's signature dish: a succulent pigeon pie, sandwiched with a generous slab of sea urchin, swimming in a luscious red wine sauce? A sense of overwhelming pleasure, the intensity of which is undoubtedly difficult to match in any other of the thousands of eateries in town.
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But what makes the experience in Trompette powerful is not only its remarkably heavy and delicious food, but also the fact that this is a one man show through-and-through. Both times, we reserved the tiny 8-seater Bistro for a private dinner, thanks to the courtesy of @hiro.yummydays . The Japanese chef of Trompette runs the whole operation by himself with an unwavering dedication and passion as intense as the flavors he puts in each of his plates. The dishes at Trompette are rustic, and they get across the love that has been put into them to the customer more powerfully than the refined French offerings ubiquitous in Tokyo.
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In the year between my two visits to Trompette, the place has gotten deservingly popular and almost impossible to book. Yet in my last visit, I was most pleased and not surprised at all to see that this growth in popularity did not come at the expense of quality. This alludes to a fact that makes Tokyo's dining scene pretty unique in today's world: quality is rewarded for quality's sake, and not because the craftsman succumbs down to populism for mass appeal. Trompette didn't even raise its prices after being so popular, and continues to offer a feast paired with beautiful French wine at a fraction of the price you would find in high-end eateries in Tokyo and around the world.
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All this combines to make dining at Trompette a unique experience to treasure, and an irrefutable example of why the Japanese are unrivalled in cooking any cuisine they put their hearts into.
