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A taste of Tokyo

OK, so some do. But the days of the 80s bubble era when you could easily pay hundreds of pounds Sterling for a steak have long gone. It might still set you back £50, but an average meal out plus wine in Tokyo is actually roughly £15 per head. And there are plenty of even cheaper options: at Tsukiji fish market you will find some of the best sushi and sashimi in the world for around a fiver — although the slight drawback is that you can only go there for lunch — or, more commonly, breakfast.

The real problem in Tokyo is not a lack of options but — as in most big cities — knowing which ones to choose. So I turned to an expert: Andy Cook, head chef of one of Tokyo’s newest gourmet additions, Gordon Ramsay at the Conrad hotel.

Tokyo’s Shiodome district, home to the newly opened Conrad (the luxury branch of the Hilton chain — a basic single room will cost you around £260 a night), is like a futurist fantasy — all grey steel and glass, the type of place where railway lines suddenly look strangely attractive. On the 28th floor, overlooking this glamorous greyness, Ramsay has two adjacent restaurants, Gordon Ramsay at Conrad Tokyo, and a brasserie, Cerise by Gordon Ramsay (the colour theme, as you might guess, is purple).

Cook’s tour begins, conveniently across the corridor from Gordon Ramsay’s, at Kazahana. A perfect exercise in Japanese minimalism, Kazahana has stunning floor to ceiling views of Tokyo bay and the Rainbow Bridge, generally considered to be one of Tokyo’s most attractive landmarks (there are, admittedly, not many). The head chef, Akio Saito, is very famous in Japan, and has even cooked for the Imperial family. Kazahana is unusual, Cook explains, because unlike most Japanese restaurants, it serves a variety of specialties in one setting — so you can choose between teppanyaki (grilled beef), sushi, tempura, as well as other classic dishes.

Star attraction is the private tatami room with views over the bay, but Cook’s favourite is the teppanyaki counter. "I love sitting there watching how skilled these guys are when they cook. Also it’s an opportunity to eat Japanese beef, which is supposedly the best in the world — the Japanese will insist that there is no better. It marries well to different styles of cooking so the teppanyaki is ideal — you get that nice sweet taste of the fat depending on the amount of beer that the cow was fed." Feeding cows beer is not cheap, and nor is Kazahana: expect to pay around £55 for the basic kaiseki (traditional Japanese haute cuisine) which includes appetiser, soup, simmered rice, clear soup, sashimi, seasonal delicacies, a simmered dish, rice dish and dessert. The chef’s special will set you back over £125 per person.

Less than 10 minutes away by train but a world away in style and architecture is the district of Kanda, where Yabusoba has been dishing up a mixture of soba and regular flour noodles since 1880. The current building is a reconstruction of the original destroyed in the 1923 earthquake, but its shoji (paper screens) and small bamboo garden (the name Yabusoba, or bush — soba shop, comes from the bamboo trees that grew outside) give you a feel for what it must have been like over a hundred years go.

"One thing I like about coming to this area is that all the restaurants are quite run down," says Andy. "Kanda is one of the original merchant areas of Tokyo so you have a lot of old shops and a lot of old restaurants. It really makes you feel like you’re in Tokyo. Soba is something quite authentic to Tokyo — soba noodles are traditionally from this area. Originally they were severed cold with a dark dashi (kind of stock), like a meat dashi."

There are several different ways of serving soba, both hot and cold, but Cook recommends you try something simple like tempura soba (around £8). "The Japanese have this strange concept of deep frying things and then putting hem in stock. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. It does here" Sticking with the traditional, our next stop was Hanezawa Gardens in the affluent expat — friendly area of Hiroo. "The food is French/Italian with Japanese influences," Cook explains, "and it’s actually very affordable — I think you could have up to four courses and it would probably cost you about £25. There’s also a barbecue on the terrace where you can sit out — you do get people sitting there in the winter with rugs, but in the summer it’s fantastic. And you can go and relax in the cocktail bar afterwards which makes it an ideal restaurant. The foie gras is particularly good, too."

Of course you don’t have to eat Japanese food all the time. Cook recommends L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon partly because it’s just like being back in Paris. "The food is executed so well — although obviously it’s very French and we’re in Japan. The way the Japanese reproduce it is absolutely incredible. The sauces are immaculate, the way it’s cooked is immaculate, and it’s consistently like this, which is what I love about eating there."

Located in Tokyo’s "city within a city", Roppongi Hills — still Tokyo’s most des res with its own office and apartment blocks, cinema, some 200 shops and Grand Hyatt hotel — L’Atelier offers a more relaxed dining experience than Robuchon’s other Tokyo restaurant, Le Chateau. It is, however, pretty good value for what you’re getting, with a summer menu of 12 courses for around £63, and fish of the day, for example, at about £14 for a large portion.

The only down side, says Cook, is that the restaurant is counter seating only. "You can’t really go with a group of friends because you all sit in a line." Atelier Robuchon also has its own onsite boulangerie and patisserie — and you will see people queuing out the door, just like in Paris.

Twenty minutes down the road is Cook’s final choice, Barbacoa, a Brazilian meat restaurant. Situated on a side street off Omotesando, Tokyo’s equivalent to Bond Street, Barbacoa is tucked away in a basement and has none of the swank of its neighbours (Louis Vuitton’s flagship store is just up the road). It may not be the most atmospheric of restaurants, but it is, at roughly £30 a head for all you can eat and drink, very good value.

"What I love about Barbacoa," he says "is that you have an amazing buffet set up — like salad and different types of food — and then they have waiters who come round with the meat. They carve the meat at the table. So they’re carving rump steak, they’re carving sirloin steak and all the different cuts of the animal, all freshly roasted and basically from there they place it on the table and you can eat what you want." It’s a far cry from what most people expect to find in Japan, and as Cook points out "for a hangover, it’s fantastic."