Fugu Diaries

This is one of my favorite Italian restaurants in town though I don’t go there often. I went there for the first time in over a year with a friend of mine last night and was reminded of how fun and good it was. A lot of Italian restaurants in Tokyo are very elegant, quiet and sophisticated, but not Elio. When you walk in the door, the noise of the chatter in the restaurant is deafening. It reminded me a lot of some of the places we went to when we visited Italy.

If you can get past the noise level, you’re in for a real treat. A waiter was promptly at our side after a few minutes, took our orders for glasses of spumante, and then helped us choose our dinner. Unlike many Tokyo restaurants that can be inflexible, the basic message at Elio is that they will try and accomodate whatever you wish. After steering us away from the “warm carpaccio” that we thought was intriguing, our waiter offered to pull together a plate of appetizers for us if we were interested in several of them. We ended up going with the cold carpaccio of exquisitely tasty hiramasa fish and sazae shell fish that they sauteed in garlic. For our pasta dish, we took him up on his offer to prepare a small portion of two items we were interested in — the squid ink risotto and genevose pasta. The risotto was thankfully cooked perfectly out of arborio rice and was still al dente in the middle. This is something you have to be careful about in Japan because many restaurants will try to make risotto with Japanese rice, which just doesn’t work no matter what they say. The pasta was also good if ordinary. It was garlicky and full of basil flavor but pesto is pesto.

Before the main course, we wanted to switch to wine. The ever-efficient waiter asked for our preference (a crispy white) and our budget (6000 yen). I was particularly impressed with the frank way he asked us about our budget because he was so matter-of-fact about it and said it in a way that we didn’t feel embarrassed about our rather low price range — this is an art that is difficult to pull off in Japanese because the language is not a direct one. The wine he brought out was one in a region close to Tuscany. It was delicious. I don’t usually drink much but I had two glasses of it last night. For our main course, we split a roasted pork dish and sauteed fish — both were delicious, and the portions were small just like we asked, so we still had room for dessert. After letting us linger over our wines for a while, they brought a selection of cakes (ricotta cheesecake, fig tart and chocolate cake) to show us, but we chose instead to have domes of chocolate gelato with zabaglione inside and espresso over the top of it. It was the perfect way to end a perfect meal.

This is not a restaurant for those who want to dine quietly, but if you aren’t one of those people, it’s definately worth going to. They’re open for lunch as well as dinner, and it’s a popular place, so you should book early. While we decided to order a la carte, Elio also offers courses, which I remember to be an equally satisfying experience. My friend and I felt so comfortable at Elio that we ended up staying until past midnight when we were the last table to leave.

Elio Locanda Italiana
Hanzomon House 203
Kojimachi 2-5-2
Chiyoda-ku
Tel: 03-5210-5701
Hours: 11:45-2:15 (lunch); 5:45-10:15pm (dinner)

— Yukari