Instagram foodies and hardcore foodies alike would be familiar with this place. To say it's highly sought after is quite an understatement because it is indeed difficult to get a seat here. I suppose I got lucky (actually I consider this a blessing from God), it seems like the restaurant was experimenting with a new third party website and I happened to be using that third party website for the first time ever on that right day at the right time, I managed to secure lunch seats at the counter for me and my parents. However, a recent update to their reservation policy has now made it even more difficult to secure seats, and even more so if you're not a Japanese local. Will tell you all more about this later.
Anyway, having lunch here turned out to be one of the biggest hits of my Tokyo holiday and I consider myself extremely blessed by God to be given this opportunity to dine here, more so now that I have found out the changes to the reservation system. This lunch was eye opening as it showed just how good Japanese-Italian food can be. It's hard to describe so I'll let the pictures do the talking:
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| Dish 1 - Olives from Spain marinated with anchovy |
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| Dish 2 - Horse Meat Tartare |
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| Dish 3 - Pan fried squid with veggies |
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| Dish 4 - Pan fried big mushroom from Hokkaido |
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| The texture was like a soft and tender abalone |
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| Dish 5 - Homemade angel hair pasta with fried ice fish and sprinkled with bottarga |
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| Dish 6 - Homemade Bread 1 |
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| Homemade Bread 2 |
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| Dish 7 - Homemade pasta with Spanish pork and topped with truffles |
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| Dish 8 - The famous Tokachi Tacubo Beef from Hokkaido served with a piece of grilled carrot |
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| Not too fatty and not too lean, perfect for steak |
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| Dish 9 - Salad to accompany the steak |
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| Dish 10- Bolognaise pasta - you may choose the amount of pasta you want at no additional cost. This is about 100g of pasta |
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| It's quite a mountain of noodles considering all the food I've already eaten from this lunch course. |
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| Dish 11 - Orange jelly with citrus and the orange fruit itself |
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| Dish 12 - Milk Ice cream sprinkled with pistachio |
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| Comes with coffee or tea! |
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| Dish 13 - Homemade Madeleine |
Well what do you think? 13 absolutely wonderful and delicious dishes for 13,500 yen. The portions aren't that small either; it may look tiny on picture, but in real life, it's pretty sizeable. This is why I said it's one of the biggest hits of the trip - fantastic food, eye opening experience and damn good price performance. Everything was great from the start to the end. The horse meat tartare really set the standard and was a sign of the good things to come. The pan fried dishes were all cooked to perfection and even the homemade pasta dishes were just mind-blowing good. The Tacubo steak didn't disappoint (it's their claim to fame after all) and even the desserts were excellent, especially the milk ice cream. I left the restaurant feeling full and very satisfied with my meal here. It makes me very sad that I probably won't be able to eat here anymore though....
Updates in the reservation system (as of March 2019)
Now you should read this if you were initially intending to add this to your list of must-try places.
The last I checked in March 2019, Tacubo has undergone some big changes in their reservation system. It seems like they now only receive reservations from a particular third party website called Omakase and even then there are specific instructions and restrictions present. They now do allow reservations by phone (previously they didn't) but by then, it is expected that majority of the seats would have already been taken up by advanced bookings through Omakase since that website enables you to book reservation dates up to two months in advance. Phone bookings are only allowed up to one month in advance to secure any "leftover" seats not taken up by Omakase. Even Tacubo's own website acknowledged this. Do refer to their Facebook and Website for further updates.
To make things even worse for us foreigners, we can't even book through Omakase, instead we'll be directed to a second third party website called Tableall which charges pretty high booking fees. I'm guessing locals have priority with the Omakase too. Solo bookings aren't allowed either so you can forget it if you're a solo diner. By the way, lunch is only served once a week on Saturdays (however when I went, it was on a Wednesday, so this may be subject to changes depending on the season).
Sounds impossible to get doesn't it? Well, I'm hoping they would revise this reservation system after a while because at this rate, I can kiss my chances of ever dining here again goodbye.....unless I become good friends with a Tokyo-based Japanese foodie or if God blesses me with the opportunity to dine here again...I don't know....
Anyway, this is a solid 5/5 experience here. The food was great, the ambiance was relaxed and even the servers were extremely friendly. Chef Tacubo didn't talk much though; even to the local diners, I guess he's just very introverted and prefers to concentrate on his food preparation rather than engage his customers. I was surprised he didn't walk his customers out the door after the meal though; most Japanese chefs would especially in this kind of high profile restaurants. But to be frank, I'm not too much bothered by this. He served fantastic food and had his servers do all the PR and talking and that's all that mattered. I didn't feel any discrimination whatsoever and I believe we were even served the better mushroom dish than the other Japanese customers who were given an asparagus dish instead.
Website: http://tacubo.com/
Address: 2 Chome-13-16 Ebisunishi Shibuya-ku Tokyo-to
Budget (Lunch): 13500+ yen
My rating: 5 /5
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