This was one of the best meals I’ve ever experienced and L’Effervescence totally deserves all 3 stars. The service was impeccable and the way that our table was situated within an alcove really made the dinner feel like a VIP/exclusive experience. The service felt personalized and top notch. Every dish really rivaled the best dishes I’ve had at any other fine dining experience I’ve had and Namae-san’s style of pairing French technique and preparation with Japanese ingredients was ingenious. The wine pairings (for the standard pairing) were wonderful as well.
If I had to put any particular standouts among the dishes, I would have to mention the turnip (it’s a classic of the restaurant for a reason, very simple, but packs a buttery punch), the duck ravioli (the use of wild mountain vegetables or sansai/山菜 in Japanese added a bitter element that held up well to the richness of the duck) and the parfait dessert (every single juice sac of the hassaku orange was separated by hand and every element of the parfait was married perfectly to each other). But really, I could gush about every dish here, it was that good.
It was one of our meals towards the end of a 2+ week trip to Japan where we had already went to a few other fine dining meals (kaiseki at Gion Matayoshi in Kyoto, Tempura Fukamachi in Tokyo, Sushi Kibatani in Kanazawa) along with plenty of other less fancy Japanese places. We had experience with what was in season in Japan already and it was amazing to see all of that come full circle in some classic French style cooking. L’Effervescence deserves all the accolades and flowers.
1 Comment
This was one of the best meals I’ve ever experienced and L’Effervescence totally deserves all 3 stars. The service was impeccable and the way that our table was situated within an alcove really made the dinner feel like a VIP/exclusive experience. The service felt personalized and top notch. Every dish really rivaled the best dishes I’ve had at any other fine dining experience I’ve had and Namae-san’s style of pairing French technique and preparation with Japanese ingredients was ingenious. The wine pairings (for the standard pairing) were wonderful as well.
If I had to put any particular standouts among the dishes, I would have to mention the turnip (it’s a classic of the restaurant for a reason, very simple, but packs a buttery punch), the duck ravioli (the use of wild mountain vegetables or sansai/山菜 in Japanese added a bitter element that held up well to the richness of the duck) and the parfait dessert (every single juice sac of the hassaku orange was separated by hand and every element of the parfait was married perfectly to each other). But really, I could gush about every dish here, it was that good.
It was one of our meals towards the end of a 2+ week trip to Japan where we had already went to a few other fine dining meals (kaiseki at Gion Matayoshi in Kyoto, Tempura Fukamachi in Tokyo, Sushi Kibatani in Kanazawa) along with plenty of other less fancy Japanese places. We had experience with what was in season in Japan already and it was amazing to see all of that come full circle in some classic French style cooking. L’Effervescence deserves all the accolades and flowers.