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Yoshi opens at Hotel Metropole
When Joël Robuchon goes Japanese in Monte-Carlo, in a restaurant designed by a Frenchman, you know the result will be pretty incredible, says Angela Cobban.
Yoshi, Robuchon's first Japanese-themed restaurant, opened at Hotel Metropole, Monte-Carlo, November 2008, and both our dinners there have been spectacular.
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First, the ambience of this lovely restaurant. You go through a door in a courtyard wall at right angles to the hotel's main entrance. Inside you see a compact fantasy designed by Didier Gomez, a ballet of ivory, pale green and stone, with orange silk bankettes (freestanding chairs are yellow). Gomez is a retail whiz, known for his stores for Armani, LVMH and Yves St-Laurent. Here walls are mirrored, and the room soars to two floors at the far end, with the wall of the resulting faux mezzanine mirrored so that it looks as if that area extends into a gallery, reflecting the giant eight by eight food swirling white and oyster chandelier, a whimsical element at the far end of the 35-seat restaurant. Beyond is an all-wall window, looking out on the Japanese garden, designed by Jacques Messin.
Manager Guillaume ANGLADE shows us to a beautiful silk-feel wood table, mitered in from its corners to a metal central panel. It is set with black rectangular plastic mats, black and clear water glasses, white napkins rolled in apple-green ribbon, and glass show plates. There are three tightly-rolled white lily buds in a celadon pot, and a night light sits in a green class. We are poured glasses of Robuchon's house bubbly, Champagne Bruno Paillard.
Joël Robuchon, the Poitiers-born chef who was crowned Chef of the Century by Gault-Millau in 1989, operates restaurants not only Monte-Carlo and Paris, but also Hong Kong, Las Vegas, London, Macau, New York City and Tokyo. In all he currently has 25 Michelin stars, the most in the world.
Here, at Yoshi, his onsite head chef is Takeo Yamazaki - shown is his Onsen-tamago. Yamazaki-san proposes set menus, which range from the Bento Boxes served at lunchtime priced at euro 29 and euro 49, to the Yoshi at euro 100 per person, up to the Kaiseki, at euro 180 each (during May's annual Grand-Prix de Monaco - next scheduled for May 20-23, 2010, he does a special lunch, at euro 1,000 per person).
We choose the Aki menu, at euro 120 each. There is a salad, a salmon sashimi, a tempura of prawn and tiny vegetable fritters with no apparent batter. We go on to Gindara no saikyo yaki, grilled black cod wrapped in a banana leaf, and thence to Miso shiru, a broth with tiny tofu bits. Steamed rice is offered, and desert is Yukiguni pearl tapioca, litchi sorbet and lime-flavored snow eggs.
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The female sommelière, Norié Harada, has an extensive list of sakes, service in individual 300-ml flasks. She recommends Kuroushi, a sake with a sober fame from Wakayama, on the coast South of Mt Fuji: this is renowned for its robust and vigorous taste and apparently it arouses murmurs of admiration from sake connoisseurs who appreciate its tight refinement. She also recommends a Dme Jolivet Sancerres Les Caillotes 2007 and a Mercurey Les Clos des Myglands 2005 Dme Faiveley.
At the next table a multigenerational party of local people - grandmother probably entertaining her son and his young family - all seem to be enjoying the evening as much as we are. They then repair, presumably to their Monaco mansion, while we are lucky enough to head back to our temporary home, room 406 of Hotel Metropole, a gold-cocoon of a room (designer Jacques Garcia) with views to gardens, Allée des Boulingrins Monte-Carlo's iconic casino, designed by Charles Garnier in 1863. Like all 146 rooms and suites in this hotel, one of the best on the Côte d'Azur if not in Europe, there is a balcony.
Hotel Metropole Monte Carlo, a member of Leading Hotels of the World, is owned by the Boustany family, and General Manager is Luca Virgilio. Its lobby is themed for a classic Florentine villa, as translated by designer Jacques Garcia with a silk central ceiling. There is a heated outdoor pool and a fabulous eight-room ESPA spa. Under the hotel's art director Maud Lesurn, a new 'look' highlights the hotel every three months: through August 2009 the hotel salutes Hermès. Tomorrow will be another day, with breakfast in the other Robuchon-run restaurant, here at Hotel Metropole Monte-Carlo. For now, it is sleep, to dream of our Yoshi meal.
Hotel Metropole, Monte Carlo, Monaco
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