Le Bourguignon Tokyo - Lunch at French Restaurant with a Michelin Star

Le Bourguignon Tokyo is a one star Michelin restaurant. It is located in Nishi-Azabu (西麻布), a nice area near Roppongi Hills. Like many posh restaurants, the affordable lunch menus are the way to get a fine dining without spending too much time or money. Le Bourguignon has prix fixe lunch courses priced at ¥ 3,800 and ¥ 4,800. Which made it an interesting place for us to have a nice lunch in Tokyo in early 2020.

Le Bourguignon Tokyo is a small restaurant in a small house. The house does not look very impressive outside, but the internal decor is warm and cosy. We felt like we had left Tokyo and stepped into an European restaurant the moment we entered the restaurant.

Le Bourguignon Tokyo Lunch Menu

Here are pictures of the lunch menu and a few pages from the wine list at Le Bourguignon. The lunch menu covers a starter that can be selected from various options, a fish or a meat for mains (¥ 3,800) or ¥ 4,800 for both. We opted for the latter.

The restaurant was celebrating its 20th anniversary and offered a 20% on wines by the bottle during January, February and March 2020. Being in a restaurant named Le Bourguignon, it was only right that we chose a bottle of wine from Burgundy. We decided on a 2017 Chablis 1er Cru Les Fourneaux (¥ 6,160 after the 20% discount).

The Starters

The meal started with a tiny amuse bouche. There was a choice of starters from the list of seven starters. The menu was written in Japanese and French. Fortunately most of the staff spoke English and we had some idea what the menu items were.

The most substantial starter was the risotto (picture below). It was topped with some large oysters

The egg starter (picture below) looked like a breakfast dish. The main attraction was the seafood that was stuffed in the eggs. A simple but tasty starter.

The third starter (picture below) looked disappointing when it arrived. It looked like a plain glass of carrot jelly. But buried inside the jelly was a creamy mix of various ingredients. We could taste some sea urchin in it. It was a pleasant surprise.

Main Courses

There was only one type of fish dish. A pan-fried fish in a light broth. This is the kind of dish that draws us to French restaurants in Tokyo. The broth was done Japanese style – very light yet with complex flavours. The dish was perfectly cooked with a very crisp skin.

There were two choices for the meat dish. One was a braised beef item (picture above). This was a nice dish but not very exceptional. I cannot remember exactly what was the other meat dish (picture below). I think it was a finely made meatball with some foie gras for added flavours. It did not look very attractive but tasted very good.