Il Ristorante Luca Fantin

Il Ristorante at The Bulgari is located on the ninth floor of a building in prime Ginza real estate, a tower that houses the largest Bulgari shop in the world, plus a hotel. On the tenth floor is a very smart bar where you can have a cocktail and browse the menu. The restaurant opened in 2009, headed by chef Luca Fantin. Prior to cooking here he worked at Pergola in Rome, as well as Cracco in Milan, and did a short stint at Ryugin. At lunch there are menus priced at ¥8,000 (£56) and ¥12,000 (£82), and further dinner menus at ¥15,000 (£102) and ¥19,000 (£129) and ¥25,000 (£170). I wrote in my previous review about the wine list.

The dining room has been revamped, with impressive chandeliers hanging from the very high ceiling. The room seats 44 guests, plus up to ten in a separate private room. There is also a little chef table in the kitchen. Our meal began with some nibbles. A white chocolate ball contained a filling of Campari and Japanese citrus. What appeared to be olives were really filled with cheese. There were Parmesan crisps and a cream of prosciutto with another little crisp, as well as burrata with tomato macaron. These were all very enjoyable, especially the cream of prosciutto, where the ham flavour came through very well (17/20).

Bread is baked in the kitchen and was accompanied by high quality Ligurian olive oil and lovely 40 year old balsamic vinegar from Modena. The breads were very classy, with sourdough, brioche style, olive bread featuring Taggiasca olives and bianchi pizza bread. These had gorgeous texture (18/20). The first course of the meal was bonito that had killed by the ikejime method of a spike through the head to best maintain its quality. This had been lightly roasted and smoked, with red onions, paprika, tomato water, vinegar and red currants. The bonito was lovely, the tomato water having real intensity, and the vinegar nicely cut through the richness of the fish (18/20).

Next, Japanese veal was served as vitello tonnato along with artichokes. To my surprise, a white truffle appeared and was then grated on top. Due to the hot summer weather this year white truffles are out very early, and this had just appeared. This was lovely, the aroma of the truffle filling the room (17/20). A vegetarian alternative was a white sphere gel contained mozzarella with tomato water and caviar, which was technically clever and also apparently delicious. 

This was followed by spaghetti topped with sea urchin from Hokkaido. This was a particularly lovely pasta dish, having just a hint of firmness, perfectly seasoned and with the high quality sea urchin bringing its own unique rich flavour and texture to the dish (18/20). Next was risotto with a mix of matsutake mushrooms and boleto mushrooms, both picked from Mount Fuji. Matsutake mushrooms are highly prized with a price to match, and the rice used was seven year aged carnaroli rice from Acquarello, which is the king of Italian rice. This was fabulous risotto, the texture terrific, and the mushrooms themselves were stunning (19/20).

Red mullet came with pannacotta, clam mousse, artichoke from Chiba and a soup bouillabaisse. The mullet was of excellent quality, cooked precisely, and the artichoke also had very good flavour. My carnivorous alternative was Kagoshima A3 wagyu beef that was from a “free range” cow allowed to wander around fields rather than being cooped up in a stall, which is the case with many wagyu cattle. This came with aubergine and tomato from Kyushu that had remarkably intense flavour and was wrapped in a thin sheet of sheep cheese. The beef was lovely, aged for 45 days and not too fatty and still very much tasting of beef (18/20). I find some of the ultra marbled beef in Japan to be too buttery to my taste, and this one struck a fine balance.

For the sweet section of the meal we began with a milk dessert both granita and ice cream topped with rice paper that had been baked with Mexican vanilla. This was very light in texture but didn’t do anything special for me, though it was undoubtedly technically accomplished (16/20). I preferred a pear dessert with a thin layer of chocolate, ricotta and salted caramel ice cream and a touch of orange zest (17/20). Finally an impressive array of petit fours arrived. There was a miniature lemon tart, a little tiramisu, melon with agar, peanut butter biscotti, a raspberry concoction, a blueberry tart, matcha with white chocolate and a glass of passion fruit juice from Okinawa flavoured with mint. These were classy petit fours, my favourites being the lemon tart and the miniature tiramisu, which had intense coffee flavour (18/20). Coffee was the premium Kara blend from Lavazza, which is as good as Lavazza gets.

Service was charming and very professional throughout the evening. I was being treated and didn’t see the bill, but a typical cost per head here with moderate wine would be about £110, a bit less at lunch. This was right on the border between 17/20 and 18/20, very strong two star cooking by any standard. With Michelin scattering stars like confetti elsewhere in Asia these days (see the Shanghai and Seoul guides for example) it is all the more puzzling that this just gets a solitary star.

Further reviews: 12th Sep 2019 | 11th Oct 2015