日本料理 龍吟

This three star Michelin restaurant is close to the Imperial Palace on the 7th floor of the dramatic Midtown Hibiya building in Chiyoda. You’ll need to find the lifts inside the building (they’re on the left side coming from the main street, a bit hidden round a corner) to get up to the restaurant.... We were sent, as others have commented, a long list of mainly “don’t’s” by email before hand - don’t be late, don’t where perfume etc. - which I suspect reflects that a lot of western tourists arrive in Tokyo and hit the big Michelin restaurants like this without perhaps having eaten elsewhere in Japan first. So we thought that was a bit hard core but kind of understandable in the circumstances. When we emerged from the lift we were looked after extremely well. We had excellent, speedy, multi-lingual service, in a subdued comfortable room. Some tables had great views out over the palace. We chose the wine pairing and it was totally fantastic. I think better than anywhere else we have done a wine pairing (French Laundry, Heston Blumenthals). Serious, trad, big guns were brought out, both wine and sake - vintage Krug, a great 2010 Cotes de Nuits, 1er Cru Meursault, Y’quem. As to the food, we’ve done a fair few omakase meals in Japan now, so expected the showcasing of different techniques. Some of the things we ate were outstanding: a hard shell clam tempura was exquisite, a smoky, tiny, whole char grilled firefly squid, a delicious crunchy eel dish, an astonishing cold mango dessert and a ‘scarlet runner bean’ red bean paste dish to finish. Some other things were a bit baffling - a Wagyu beef hot pot seemed like an odd use of doubtless very expensive ingredients to very little appreciable effect, stone fish sashimi (which no doubt gets some oohs for being … stone fish) was just tough. And some things I’d happily never eat again (an abalone dish, a fried sakura shrimp dish on rice that was violently salty). The gifts we left with - a set of beautiful chopsticks and a small plastic bottle of water (“as a memento”?! Whuh? I could get this from a vending machine…) summed up my experience. Equal parts exquisite and baffling. I don’t think I have ever been at a restaurant that caused such wild swings of response - from “wow” to “erm… perhaps that’s enough of that”. It was also top end expensive at around $1,000 a head. So firmly in Heston Blumenthal / French Laundry territory. We’d been to the Sketch Library the previous month, at a similar price point, and that was a far better experience for me. Sadly, beautifully served though Ryugin’s meal was, and in parts exceptional, it wasn’t - at least to my taste - in that kind of league . The mind boggling wine pairing couldn’t offset that meals at this level need to be consistently brilliant as well as brilliant. And although this was brilliant it was so only in parts I am afraid

April 2026に訪問

STAY CLEAR. We were super excited to experience a 3 star restaurant in Japan. RyuGin is not even worthy of 1 star, or even a Bib. This was our worst meal in Japan. We don't even think twice about spending $1000 per person for a high end meal and often think such experiences are great value. T...he food was bland. And no, the ingredients did not speak for themselves. The sashimi was the worst we had on the trip. We did not attend a conveyor belt Sushi restuarant but the fish would have been better. I think it had been prepared for hours and was dried out and tough. For the dishes/soups I literally think they used dishwater. Two nights later we went to a two star restaurant (Ginza Kojyu) and it was SPECTACULAR. The flavors were delicate but delightful. I rarely if ever make such negative comments but I truly feel responsible to help others avoid such an experience at RyuGin. Service was just about ok but water was not kept topped up, I noticed other tables had to ask about this too. Sake pairing was fine. What a waste of money.

April 2026に訪問

Not the same Ryugin that we have visited many years ago when Ryugin only got a star. Back then it was very, very good. Hence the reason we booked this restaurant again when we visited Japan. This visit was in July 2024, on a day we guess probably the Chef was not in. We were disappointed. Among... the many courses, there were 3 different dishes, corn soup, corn puree and corn something, all 3 tasting the same. Maybe, the junior chef has run out of ideas of what to serve us that night.

July 2024に訪問

First and foremost: this is a traditional Kaizeki-style Japanese restaurant, as such it might outright not be everyone's cup of tea, purely from a conceptual point of view. We were served the menu of the night. I unfortunately failed to find a single course that I liked. Everything was very mushy, ...chewy, sometimes both. The flavors were quite one-dimensional, overwhelmingly algae and miso. I believe however that it is a question of taste. The service was unfortunately not great. While very nice, it felt quite hurried. Plates were being taken away while half the table was still eating. This is something that would never fly in a Michelin restaurant in the West, but perhaps it is acceptable in the East. Another thing is the lack of extras. There was very little off-menu which in the end felt like the price we payed (44'000 JPY) was quite high. All in all, it was a bit of a disappointing experience for a 3 star Michelin.

October 2023に訪問

After 12 dishes of fish and only fish, many tasteless the bill came to 1,300 USD and we were sickened. Good wine selection but 80 dollars for a glass of grand cru and literally 3 sips poured into the glass. There was only one wow moment which was a dumping made of blowfish. Basically every course ha...d blowfish in it and we never want to eat one again. Super waste of money.

March 2022に訪問