L’effervescence - Minato

What a disgrace to Japanese food. While some people come here for fine dining experience, the culinary experience is far from satisfying. The portions are tiny and the taste is mediocre. If you want to impress someone by throwing a lot of money on the table, go ahead. If you want to please the taste buds of your guest, personally not recommended.

We’ve been fortunate enough to dine at a number of Michelin restaurants globally (New York, Italy, Austria , and we visited 3 other Michelin restaurants while in Japan, and L’Effervesence was the most disappointing one. Though the restaurant is tastefully designed, and service was polite and efficient, it was also quite stiff and impersonal. There were definitely a few pretentious moments (such as the table side matcha service with exaggerated napkin folding and movements . There was a weird option cheese course that was included in the set menu, but not physically listed on said menu, so that caused a bit of confusion. Overall, flavours were good, but no dish stood out in particular, and no story was told through the menu. There was also some questionable plating on one or two dishes (ie the sashimi scallops that supposedly painted a portrait of the sky… . At payment, our card was declined twice, and they informed us they did not have a chip reader when I asked them to insert the card, rather than swipe it. This is quite shocking for a Michelin restaurant, albeit a 1 star one. We used the same card our entire trip, before and after the restaurant, so our card was not the issue. This particular card has no foreign transaction fees, so it was definitely irritating to pay over 50,000 yen for a mediocre dinner, and then have to use a different card WITH foreign transaction fees because the restaurant wasn’t properly equipped.

Not worth it! well, some dishes were good but i don’t understand why they managed to get a 3 star? i wasn’t even impressed. my photos were the least impressed ones.

Beautiful cozy atmosphere and excellent food

Authentic Italian. Excellent.