When asked about his cooking style, Chef Tomori uses an analogy from his earlier days as a photographer: he puts an Italian filter on delicious ingredients to create his own unique cuisine. The seasonal prix-fixe course offering choices within is filled with flavor, a squeeze of citrus or a dash of vinegar, lots of vegetables, and beautiful colors. The simple yet appetizing plates offer contrasting tones of pinks and greens, appealing to both the eyes and the taste buds. And they can all be enjoyed with either fine-tipped chopsticks or dessert-sized knives and forks.

The very first dish is the perfect example of this idea of Italian cuisine with Japanese sensibility. While a traditional meal may start with carpaccio, Tomori presents chutoro sashimi atop a wasabi leaf with anonori green laver in a red wine vinegar marinade. Dining in autumn, next may be the salty and zingy flavors of seikogani snow crab. The plump meat is topped with hundreds of tiny eggs that pop in your mouth, enjoyed with homemade harissa, key lime and coriander. A cauliflower minestrone with wild rice and herb oil is seriously elevated comfort food, followed by succulent steamed blacktip grouper (akahata). Beef cheeks that absolutely fall apart at the slightest touch of a chopstick are served with salsa verde and sautéed Italian greens that give the perfect crispy and crunchy textures you want. This is warming homemade food without any heaviness.

When you think it couldn’t get any better than this, the pasta course arrives. Tajarin, an egg-yolk-rich pasta from Piemonte, is handmade upstairs everyday into thin ribbon strands. Traditional Italian fish sauce adds depth and umami to the creamy mushroom sauce and every mouthful is rich al dente deliciousness.
And because the chef feels that your senses are ready to rest now, dessert almost always features fresh seasonal fruits. November means persimmons, ripened almost to jelly, with a sweet balsamic sauce and amaretto-infused hand-whipped cream.

INGREDIENTS
Tomori uses different specialized suppliers for each of his proteins from crab to white fish to tuna and beef. He calls ports directly to try and obtain seasonal oysters from Hiroshima to Saga, always ensuring he gets the tastier smaller-sized ones. And he has personal contact with hunters to supply delicious duck. For vegetables, he loves strolling through the Aoyama Farmers Market on weekends and visits Tsukiji three or four times a week. While his focus is on homegrown ingredients, Tomori occasionally looks overseas for premium produce, especially for items not readily available or not yet up to par with his expectations, like artichokes. But Tomori hopes to change that by establishing tie-ups with Japanese farmers to create excellent quality produce.