Tempura Niitome Nagoya

Tempura Niitome 天風良にい留 1st visit — one of the top rated tempura restaurants in Japan located in Nagoya, almost 2 hours trip one way just for this meal. Overall it lived up to my expectation. Chef was funny and enjoyed interaction with guests. The way he prepares the food was quite “free style”, borderline sloppy, but the resulting dishes were turned out to be perfect. Batter on each piece looked thick but it thins out in the fryer, the texture of every bite was refined and balanced. Favorite was the huge juicy oyster and the sweet potato tempura with ice cream — hands down the best dessert I’ve had in a tempura restaurant! •
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Tempura Niitome is as of the time of writing this the number 1 restaurant in Japan on Tabelog with an impressive rating of 4.80 (this a very dynamic list so it might not last long). I doubt that a tempura restaurant ever reached that position since the inception of Tabelog.
And there is a good reason for this. For starters Chef Niitome’s otsumani is fantastic. His kue sashimi can stand up to any high end Kaiseki restaurant. The ankimo (monk fish liver) melts in your mouth and leaves a faint trace of honey on the palate. Cold soba noodles are served with an uni sauce from Hokkaido, but the Ikaro chawanmushi tops it all. The Ikura has the right level of saltiness and the egg custard contains enough residual liquidity so you can easily mix it all up, close your eyes, slurp and enjoy it. Haven on earth.
Once he gets going with the tempura the astonishment just increases with each of the 20 servings. There is very little Chef Niitome cannot convert into a tempura. And whatever he takes out his frying pot is perfectly cooked. The batter is thin and airy but tastes slightly oily, something which you want when going to a tempura restaurant. The core is soft (fish) or crunchy (vegetables) to bring out the best in each piece. He switches on and off the heat to create the prefect temperature for the respective food. And he does this all while entertaining his guest with stories and information about the food they are eating. I could now go on and one with lengthy descriptions about each servings but I just wanted to point out one as an example. As we are in the snow crab season I have had now almost every night during the last six weeks one form of snow crab. But never in my wildest dreams did I think I would get a kobako-kani (female snow crab) tempura. Chef Niitome prepares the flavour box (English translation of kobako) in the same way everybody does, but then puts the whole thing into his batter, made out of egg, water and frozen flower, before throwing it into the boiling oil. How he knows when to take it out, so the whole content is perfectly cooked is beyond me, but it highlights his skills. 

This is my third meal there in the last 11 months and it was the best one. A stunning observation as conditioned by the previous meals I came with sky high expeditions. 



PS: Chef Niitome revealed to us that he never releases all seats when opening up a booking period. He then opens them up almost randomly for people who call. So don’t give up hope, just call and hope to be lucky. Less

Chef Niitome’s plays in his own league when it comes to tempura. (And his raw fish appetiser are of high end sushi quality).
His place in Nagoya became rapidly a pilgrimage for people all over Japan and the world for his marathon tempura session. Be prepared to start at 18:00 but not leave after well beyond 22:00. But this is not because of a super slow pace or an abundance of food, no the tempo is well paced and even though you have about 20+ course of deep fried food you feel stuffed to the hilt.
His batter which he prepares every few course afresh is made our of 1 egg with special local water and his own flower combination which he keep in the freezer. Whatever this freezing does to the batter, the result is just stunning. Light, but airy, tasty but not dominating to the ingredient he is frying. One can taste the oil but it does not become overpowering or during the course of this long meal a common thread so you think everything tastes the same.
From time to time, one encounters a place or person, where something which is quite normal simply gets elevated to something very special. Niitome in Nagoya is such a place. Less