Dine-in Experience with Natsuko Shoji

Address:

Raffine Yoyogi Park, Tomigaya 1-2-6, Shibuya, Tokyo 151-0063

Welcome to été.

First of all, please forgive us for the long hiatus. It has been forever since we last posted. We were trying to give our blog a facelift that took way longer than expected but we’re back and ready to take you on a very interesting culinary journey into the mind of chef Natsuko Shoji and her French inspired restaurant été.

A little background on the chef before we continue. She’s a woman. A rarity in the still male dominated Japanese culinary world. She was first a pastry chef and became famous for her chanel quilt (yes, the bag) inspired mango and peach cakes.

She is also part of the new modern genre of Japanese chefs who has an instagram account @natsuko.ete with a direct line to her to make a booking.

été is located in an unassuming residential area near Yoyogi Park.

The restaurant only has a single table and only does one seating per night. Dinner is also served just a few times a month. I had my dinner here just a couple of days after David Beckham visited this restaurant as you can view on Chef Natsuko Shoji’s instagram account.

So let’s discuss the food. To start things off, she served a bite size sea urchin tart with smoked gouda cheese on top. Pretty good.

Next came the brioche. A wonderful scent of butter filled the room as it emerged and the bread was humongous. It definitely made an impact on the table.

The next dish was one of my favorite. Ayu fish sandwiched in zucchini with ayu liver sauce. Absolutely delicious!

Next dish was Abalone and young corn. This one is good too but still liked the previous dish better.

I personally am a fan of tilefish or Amadai. The chef prepared it in an interesting way. She fried the fish until all the tiles bloomed and became very crispy. The sauce was a consomme of asparagus and hairy crab.

The chef also served two Guinea Fowl dishes pictured above and below.

This one is submerged in a truffle based consomme.

To clean the palette she served a melon themed sorbet

And last but definitely not least, her signature dessert, the famously beautiful miyazaki mango cake whose amazing scent just filled the room as soon as she opened the glass top. Apparently you can only get the miyazaki mango cake if you dine here. She uses other ingredients for her take away cakes. Just look at how intricately beautiful it looks.

Each person gets one rose bud.

After the sweet mango cake, the chef served some bitter chocolate to balance things out.

The cost for all this is around 24.000 yen excluding beverage.

My verdict?. Food was good and unique. I feel like Chef Natsuko Shoji has an amazing imagination with the ability to see things that other people can not. It reflects in her array of delicacies which were unique. My personal favorite were the ayu fish sandwich, the amadai and of course the mango tart.

If you manage to reach her through the direct number on her instagram account, I do recommend you give it a try.