Aux Délices de Hongo (オ・デリス・ド・本郷, Hongo, Bunkyu-ku)

address : 東京都文京区本郷２-４０-１５
phone : 03-3813-1961
opening hours : 11:30 to 13:30 (LO) and 18:00 to 21:00 (LO)

This is the restaurant I personally rate as one of the best among the casual French restaurants in Tokyo. The food is excellent - it seems lots of efforts are spent on it - and large portions are served. The service is nice as well. You will have enough explanations about the food by the waiters. As well as food, the atmosphere is nicely quiet, simple and noble. I always go there for lunch which costs 1800 yen for a menu including amuse bouche, appetizer, main, desert, cafe and sweets. It is definitely a reasonable price. The volume of the lunch makes me guess the dinner should be bigger than my stomach, that’s why I haven’t tried dinner (3900 yen ~) there. Unfortunately I do not remember the wine menu... But I believe it is an address you can be satisfied with, really!

There is café & bar downstairs of the restaurant and it has more casual food and also lunch and dinner. My lunch once there was one plate menu that was salad, soup, quiche, bread with desert and cafe, and was 1200 yen. If you feel like having French meal casually, it is also good place.

web : www.de-hongo.com

Hongo & Korakuen

Aux Délices de Hongo is, indeed, an excellent address!

There are three diner courses, priced at 5000, 5500 and 7800 yen (+5% service); We tried the "Birthday menu", the most expensive at 7800 yen which offers several starters, a fish, a meat and two desserts...

The first plate was the specialty of the chef, a very original dish I would have a lot of trouble to describe: it consists of some tomatoes on mascarpone, with a tomato sorbet! Very refreshing and pleasant...



We then had grilled asparagus (really grilled, not boiled) served with an onsen egg and iberico ham; a very unusual combination, which was perhaps a little too salty though.



After a grilled foie gras sur lentilles, we were served a white fish from Hokkaido (Hakodate, to be precise) - I unfortunately do not remember the name of the fish.



Main dish was either grilled pork or lamb from Hokkaido; while lamb served in Japan usually comes from New Zealand, this one was grown up in Hokkaido; The portion for two persons - seen on the left picture - was really generous, and served with a sausage and rognon.



Dessert was also to be chosen, and we went for the Earl Grey creme brulee, an original variation of the creme brulee found in almost all French restaurants in Tokyo. It was served with a vanilla ice cream.



Small extra sweets were served, including a macaron, but they were clearly less tasty than the rest of the meal... Wine is relatively expensive if you do not choose the 5-6 main wines that are available at the glass (800-1100 yen) or bottle; Still, we had a good Château Desmirail 2002 for 9800 yen; this Troisième Cru Classé is quite a good Margaux, which probably would cost around 5000 yen in a shop... in France!

All together, the service could be slightly improved (no menu in English or French, and the waiter was almost touching my food to describe it), but the settings are comfortable and the food is definitively above the par, and in fact better that in some Michelin restaurants of Tokyo!!