Reminiscence - French food in Nagoya with two Michelin stars

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Reminiscence is one of only two French restaurants in Nagoya that have been awarded two Michelin stars, and it's located in a stand-alone townhouse in a residential neighborhood.

When you enter the restaurant, you'll be amazed by the décor. It's all in white, with simple details, pure white rocks, a cave-like wine cellar, a chandelier lit up like a full moon, and dining chairs covered in silver leaf - it's all so dreamy.

Sea urchin stacked with shrimp sashimi and a slice of squid ink crunch is a simple combination of sweet and savory as long as the ingredients are good enough.

The bottom is a rice cake with a texture similar to fried crispy mochi, the center is a taro cake made from local Nagoya taro, and the top is piled high with crab meat tartar. The texture of the two starches is similar, and the seasoning is slightly monotonous.

Poached until half-cooked, the fish hid a sweet shrimp-tomato salsa underneath. Especially in the sauce, a whiskey sauce with a smoky flavor added a resounding sense of support to the fish, which was otherwise moist and lacking in texture. A cabbage leaf was fried to create a thin, translucent texture that echoed the beauty of the gold-painted decoration on the plate.

The same low-temperature, semi-cooked alfonsino snapper was served with deep-fried cherry blossom shrimp and a rice-based sauce. However, the rice syrup itself was bland in flavor, and the delicate aroma and sweetness of the rice to complement the fish was heavy in texture but short on flavor.

Summer is the time to eat koji, a small, migratory fish that is almost always found in Japan's fine dining establishments. It is also known as the “annual fish” because it lives for only one year. It is very demanding of the environment and grows only in water that is “clear, but no fish”, and will die if it is slightly polluted. Because of this, the Japanese favor the bitterness of the fish and grill it with its guts, and the bitterness of the cleansing agent is a limited taste that is only available for a short period of time in the summer under the Japanese aesthetics.

Luckily, it was closely followed by a serving of clear chicken soup to wash away the bitter flavor permeating the mouth.

Grilled eel with wagyu beef tartare then rolled in seaweed is unerringly delicious, but the craftsmanship and ingenuity are lacking. This dish is more suited to a bistronomie than fine dining.

Charcoal grilled to medium rare, the Wagyu beef filet was served with a mountain pepper sauce, mustard seed sauce, and Wagyu beef stock concentrate, which was a little too small in terms of the proportion of sauces. The green mountain pepper sauce on the side with the beef had a similar flavor logic to the Chinese green pepper stir-fry.

The side dishes are beautiful little gardens from organic farms that the restaurant works with on a special basis. Many restaurants nowadays mark the names of the farmers on a card, which is served at the table with the meal, as a sign of respect for the growers of the ingredients.

The palate cleansing dessert was a light pineapple sorbet with frozen pineapple chunks, whipped into a honeycomb shape to lighten the overall texture.

The dessert was infused with cherry and pistachio jam in the chocolate soufflé. Slightly lacking in baking time, the chocolate batter was a bit too moist and unformed. Luckily, the overall flavor was traceably delicious.

The summer menu focuses on seafood and the overall seasoning is light and unobtrusive.

An extra shout out to the wine pairings! The short, specially designed three-glass wine list is just right for a light lunchtime drink. Especially priced at less than 300 yuan, a glass of champagne plus a white and a red, the selection is not bad, there are nearly a thousand dollars of wine, quite a big deal.

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Often lament the high cost of goods, comprehensive product and pricing and then superimposed on the yen exchange rate, now eat Fine Dining cost-effective place, should be in Japan.

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