Last week, I was invited to the opening of a beautiful, new restaurant in Ginza, Tokyo’s most luxurious shopping district known for its high-end fashion stores and also as a center for fine dining in Tokyo. During my student days in Japan, I used to work part-time at a Michelin star restaurant in Ginza. That helped me learn more about the finesse of Japanese cuisine and helped me improve my Japanese a lot as well. But I will tell you more about that experience maybe in another post. For now, I would like to tell you about this time’s great experience. It was probably my first time having dinner in Ginza at another restaurant besides the one I worked at.

GINZA KITAO  個室焼肉 銀座きたお specializes in yakiniku or Japanese BBQ. All tables at this restaurant are in private dining-style rooms, perfect to enjoy your dinner without any worries (especially during these times…). This was actually my first dinner out in a while and the fact that we could enjoy this experience in a private room convinced me to go. It is also ideal for a date, a special occasion with someone dear, or a company meeting when you wouldn’t want people to know what you are talking about. The restaurant has 14 rooms, most can accommodate up to 6 persons but there is also a larger room for banquets and larger groups.

The decor of the restaurant is simple, the light inside is on the darker side and overall you can enjoy a quiet and elegant atmosphere. Unlike other yakiniku restaurants I have been to, here all the slices of meat are grilled in front of you by one of the staff members (usually you have to grill it yourself).

We had a course menu which consisted of 11 dishes, each dish was so beautifully presented, with small details representing the season (this time autumn). In washoku (Japanese cuisine) you can observe the attention to the change of the seasons with small details on the design of the plates, in the ingredients used, and so on. For example, we had matsutake mushrooms, specific for autumn, with one of the dishes and also a dessert with pear compote at the end. A member with 3 stars on the Michelin’s Bib Gourmand Guide produces the menu at Ginza Kitao, so you can expect everything to be impeccable. I hope this restaurant will get a Michelin star in the future as well!

So here is how our course looked like. They also have other courses that you can check on their homepage (linked above) or on Tabelog. To celebrate their opening,  they are offering two glasses of Moet Chandon as a present with any of the course menus.

Course C

Appetizers – five types of meat  前菜　お肉５種

Soup of the season (we had pumpkin 🎃) 季節のスープ

Grilled meat with salt and other seasonings  本日の塩焼き２種

Grilled meat with tare sauce  本日のタレ焼き２種

Salad  サラダ

Special grilled meat    厳選焼き

Chawanmushi with hormones   ホルモンの茶碗蒸し

Sukiyaki  すき焼き

Water Kimchi   水キムチ

Noodles or rice   お食事

Dessert    デザート

The appetizers, pumpkin soup, and the first type of meat

Meat with tare sauce (notice the Momiji leaf)

Salad with scallops, salmon, and a bubbly dressing

Special grilled meat

Chawanmushi with hormones and truffles, the first time I tried hormones and in this combination, they were quite good!

Sukiyaki meat with raw egg and uni

Noodles

Pudding and pear compote for desert

Everything was delicious and as you can see in the photos above, the presentation was very beautiful as well. The meat was of the highest quality of A5 Wagyu from Kagoshima Prefecture. It is a great place to experience high-end yakiniku in Tokyo!