Hommage - Tokyo
Nook in the dining room (after dinner)
Rating: 15/20
Where: Tokyo, Japan
When: Dinner for 3 on 30 October 2025
Cost per Person: Tasting menu 28000-38500 JPY ($180-$250), Wine pairing 25000 JPY ($165)
Accolades: 2 Michelin Stars, Tabelog Bronze Award (2025)
Why: French cuisine with Japanese ingredients in a family-run restaurant
Tucked away in a residential neighborhood of Tokyo's Asakusa district is "Hommage", a French restaurant run by a husband and wife team - he is in the kitchen while she leads the front of the house. The dining room is up a flight of stairs: a long and narrow space with a row of six tables next to a nook with another two tables (see above). There are white table cloths, dark wood paneling, and wooden chairs - the setup is comfortable, but feels a bit dated. Clearly, the focus of this two-Michelin-starred restaurant is on the food, and not on the glitzy interior design. Well, the focus on the food and the service: our kimono-clad hostess was extremely welcoming, as was the remainder of the staff, with generally good English being spoken. It says something about the impressive variety of fine-dining restaurants in Tokyo that down-to-earth family-run businesses such as this one can easily co-exist with fancy no-expense-spared outfits.
At the time of our visit, Hommage offered two tasting menus, and the choice between them had to be made at reservation time. As is not uncommon in Japan, the difference between the two menus (other than their price) was not communicated ahead of time. Presumably the costlier menu used more expensive ingredients, and it was the one we went for. A wine pairing was offered for a quoted price of “20000-25000 JPY” ($130-$165), with the final price depending on the choices made by the sommelier. In my case, it ended up at the higher end of the range. The six wines (and one sake) all matched the food quite well, but - apart from the bookending champagne and red Bordeaux -, were not wines that I would order on their own. Non-alcoholic drink accompaniments were also available, priced at 7500 JPY ($50) for three glasses and 12000 JPY ($80) for a full pairing.
Our dinner started with a selection of small bites. A round, croissant-like pastry was filled with anchovies and topped with a dollop of sautéed onions and black olive powder. This bite had a nice, light crunch on the outside - exactly what one might expect from a croissant -, but its interior was surprisingly dense, making for a quite heavy dish with a hint of fish flavor 13. Next to it were some grissini sticks seasoned with herbs. They had a medium crunch, but didn't taste of much. Uneventful 13. On a separate plate came a cracker with three toppings: a piece of apple from Nagano, a white bean hummus and an olive marinated with garlic and herbs. The crunchy apple had hints of anise flavor, the hummus was ok, and the olive tasted somewhat marinated. All fine, but again not terribly exciting 13.
The final appetizer was a mushroom soup that was served atop a wooden pedestal, possibly suggesting a forest theme? The soup incorporated Japanese citrus fruit, toasted buckwheat and buckwheat oil. The mushroom flavor was fine, but not very strong. The oil added some mouthfeel, and the roasted buckwheat some crunch 14.
Next, we were served the night's most elegant - yet also most austere - presentation. Cuttlefish from Yokohama had been made into a tartare that was seasoned with lemons, shallots and chives. The tartare was covered with osetra caviar and surrounded by a celeriac cream sauce. Indeed, “creaminess” could be considered the theme of this dish: the sauce had it, the caviar had a pronounced creamy texture and even the cuttlefish had inklings of it. And visually, there was an obvious black and white color scheme. All the dish's components were great individually, and they also combined nicely. If I had to nitpick, though: the cuttlefish had a bit too much chewiness, and conversely, the caviar could have had more texture. Then again, that’s just nitpicks for an otherwise lovely dish 16.
Slices of warm bread and individual butter pots for each guest were served while we were still enjoying the previous course. The bread had no crunch and a pretty generic taste. Presumably it was intentionally bland, in order to avoid distracting from the food 12.
The following course was essentially a hassun - a course found in traditional Japanese kaiseki cuisine that features a variety of seasonal bites. This French version consisted of five individual dishes. Uni (sea urchin) from Hokkaido was served with soy sauce, wasabi, and a sea water jelly. The whole was topped with a cauliflower mousse and specks of colorful cauliflower and romanesco. The cauliflower taste was quite pronounced, and the salty uni was pretty good as well 16. Next, we tried a little sandwich filled with foie gras that was topped with green apples. The crunchy cracker felt slightly oily, and its filling was a bit bitter, maybe due to the foie gras? But otherwise, I couldn't taste much of the foie, since the crunchy apples dominated the taste. Had there been eel in this dish, it could have been considered an homage to MartÌn Berasategui 14. A little cracker tartlet was filled with muscat grapes, a tofu cream and hazelnuts. The cracker had a mealy crunch, and the predominant flavor of this dish came - unexpectedly - from the hazelnuts. The grapes added some sweetness, but their flavor was not strong enough to compete with the nuts 13. Next, we had what was essentially a piece of nigiri sushi. The fish on top was saury. It was somewhat fatty, fishy-tasting, and overall reminiscent of mackerel. The rice had been seasoned with white balsamic vinegar, an unlikely choice for an actual sushi restaurant. The nigiri sat on top of a perilla leaf, and both were meant to be eaten together. This was an enjoyable bite, but it had a slightly bitter taste, and the fish didn't quite have the clean flavor and texture that I'd expect for good sushi 14. Finally, a tartlet that was filled with a century egg, jellyfish, mung beans, fromage blanc and ginger. When eaten in one bite, this dish went through an impressive series of taste impressions: sweet, acidic, savory, and then some spices. Clearly, there was lots going on here, but did the result actually taste good? In that regard, it was more of a “ok, not great” situation 15. On a side note: this course had been paired with two beverages, presumably due to the wide range of flavors: a Burgundian rosé and a Japanese sake.
The first of two seafood courses featured a filet of charcoal-grilled amadai (tilefish). It came with a mushroom-based sauce, matsutake mushrooms, and was topped with shaved white truffles. The fish had a crunchy skin, but was not overcooked, having a firm and fatty texture. The truffles added a nutty flavor that went well with the mushroom sauce. Interestingly, this sauce had a stronger flavor than the mushroom soup from the beginning of our meal 16.
Half an abalone was topped with some spinach-like greens, a dollop of caviar, and (added tableside) a beurre blanc with chopped tomatoes. First a note on the plating: this dish looked beautiful when it came out of the kitchen - clean, with the abalone, spinach, and caviar neatly stacked. I wish I had taken a picture then, because after adding the beurre blanc, the result looked a bit messy. This might be an instance where “putting the sauce on the side” might not have been a bad idea. Anyway - on to the taste. The fresh abalone had a noticeable bite, and was quite chewy as a result. Sadly, it didn’t taste of much by itself. Normally, a beurre blanc would have been more than up to the task of remedying that, but this one was very light in flavor as well, seemingly watered down by the tomatoes. I felt that there was some untapped potential with this dish 14.
Our final savory dish was a charcoal-grilled beef filet from Southern Japan (Kumamoto). It was topped with chopped shallots and slices of Chinese yam, and was accompanied by dollops of three different sauces: a green chimichurri, a black garlic sauce and a sabayon made of butter and coffee. Tableside, a sauce prepared from beef stock, bay leaves, olive oil and sherry vinegar was poured over the steak. The beef was amazing: it had been cooked perfectly to a medium consistency, and was extremely tender but not fatty at all. Its only, but unfortunately significant, drawback was the serving temperature, which was merely lukewarm. Warmer would definitely have been better here. The yams on top had a slightly “slimy” consistency akin to mountain yams (no complaint, though), and the sauces were also quite good, in particular the chimichurri and the interestingly flavored black garlic. I just wish that there had been more than just a little bit of each, barely enough for a single bite 16. (This rating would have been at least a point higher if the beef had been served warmer.)
Halfway through the beef course, we were served a little salad featuring fifteen different kinds of herbs and vegetables, dressed with a cashew nut/butter sauce, and drizzled with a 25-year-aged balsamic vinegar. The lovely salad was quite light and the vegetables underneath (ginkgo nut, broccoli, and radish, among others) were served warm 15.
Our first dessert had a soy milk ice cream served over pomegranate seeds and smashed kaminari okoshi, a traditional Japanese rice puff snack. This rice snack was crunchy and sweet, going well with the equally sweet ice cream. An enjoyable, straightforward dessert 15.
More ice cream followed, and this time it was flavored with jasmine. The ice cream itself was again quite nice, but the jasmine give it an aftertaste that reminded me of soap - not the most favorable of associations, and I presume not the kitchen's intention 14.
The main dessert featured slices of Japanese pear artfully arranged around a white chocolate mousse and topped with a sancho pepper milk foam and shredded roasted white chocolate. The pears were fresh and the creamy filling had a light citrusy taste - that tartness kept the dish from becoming too heavy. Lovely 16.
Five small bites concluded our dinner. A mini canelé was good for its size: it had a good caramelized flavor and some crunch, but - by necessity - not enough of a soft interior 15. A thinly sliced piece of rusk topped with sugar crystals was nothing particularly special 12. A lemon jelly was tart, bitter and sweet - an interesting combination 14. Little chocolate pralines were good, but slightly fatty and bitter 15. Finally, six Asakusa-style sweet pancakes were served on their baking tray: warm and sweet 14.
Overall: It's always interesting to see the interpretations of a cuisine that one has seen many times before (French) in a different country (Japan). This was done mainly by using local ingredients, but there were also some very subtle nods to the sequencing of traditional kaiseki cuisine. The individual dishes were a bit of a mixed bag, though. Most of the main courses were quite enjoyable, for example the beef and the cuttlefish tartare. However, the smaller bites (appetizers, hassun, petit fours) were less impressive, falling short of what one might expect at a Michelin-star level (to say nothing of a two). Still, combined with the welcoming service, this was definitely a nice experience overall 15.
