Beige is a unique restaurant, not only for its excellent food, but that the Tokyo branch is a collaboration between Alain Ducasse and Chanel. Hence, it is housed on the top floor of the Chanel Building in the glitzy Ginza.
Upon arrival at the restaurant, you will walk pass a dimmed corridor until the beautiful skyline of Ginza reveals at the end of the walkway.
In the special "Chanel" lift, the buttons are all in Chanel logo with Beige having a special top button above all.
The touch by Chanel is all over the restaurants. From the fabric adorning the chairs to the designs of the restaurant.
We placed 2 orders for the Set Lunch (8,000 yen) which consisted of 3 dishes from Appetizers and Main Courses, plus dessert and coffee or tea.
A cute frog sculpture with a crystal decorated each dining table.
The water glasses had a red hue at the bottom, so when water is poured the red also appears on the surface.
We were first served some complimentary cheese puffs (which wasn't really the best we had tasted).
Our first dish was the cold Amuse Bouche which cooled us down during the warm Tokyo summer months.
The unsalted French butter was served on a "floating" crystal rock. Bread was cold, and I am guessing that restaurants in Japan usually serves cold breads to diners.
The first appetizer was the Veal Hock and Chanterel Mushrooms in a delicate jelly. The jelly was savoury and light, and complimented the emat and mushrooms.
The other appetizer - Cold Ratatouille, shoulder of Rabbit stuffed with herbs, turned out to be a delicious surpirse dish. Initally, we didn't expect much from a cold ratatouille dish. But the rabbit shoulder was really juicy and tender, without the overpowering gamey taste.
Red mullert fillet "a la plancha", seasonal vegetables "a la grecque" - We were surprised at how shiny and beautiful the red fish skin was, as it was cooked la plancha, meaning grilled on a metal plate. Vegetables cooked with vinegar or lemon and olive oil are referred to as cooked under "a la grecque". Bottomline is the fish is fresh, and the vegetables flavourful.
Pave of Suzuki baked, chard cooked with the cooking juice - The Suzuki fish baked in an oven was still juicy and sweet.
We selected 2 different mains from our set lunch. First was the Duck on a spit, green beans sauteed with shallots, rotie of giblet. The duck meat was juicy and tender after being cooked in a savoury sauce. We believe it was cooked using the Sous-vide method. The vegetables were 100% grown in Japan.
The other meat course was the Fondant Veal breast, golden potatoes and tomato fondue with marjoram. The veal was incredibly tender. A fork would have sufficed to sliced the tender meat.
Desserts are served. Here, we have one of their highly recommended dessert - the Savarin, with a choice of Armagnac brandy and light whipped cream. The service staff first took out this big Savarin cake with whipped cream. The Savarin cake originated from France and here in Japan, the texture is almost like sponge cake.
2 different brandies were given to us for drizzling over the cake. One was a 30 years brandy, and the other was a 50 years brandy. Of course we chose the 50 years one. It was amazing when mixed with the cake and whipped cream.
The Carre Chanel chocolate-praline, hazelnut ice-cream, was the other dessert we had from the set lunch.
After desserts, we were served these superb Macarons from the kitchen.
Tea and coffee in Chanel ware were also served to us.
And finally, a complimentary Petit Four in the likes of the legendary "Chanel" chocolate. The one chocolate everyone wants would be the one with the Chanel logo. But to be frank, the chocolate was pretty average.
As if we were not full by now, 2 Madeleines were brought out from the kitchen as a after-petit four snack.
So will we return again to Beige the next time we are in Tokyo? The answer is a resounding YES. And we are keeping our fingers crossed that Alain Ducasse will be setting up a branch here in Yours Singapore.
Beige Alain Ducasse Tokyo
Ginza Chanel Building
10th floor,
3-5-3 Ginza Chuo-ku,
Tokyo