Restaurant in Tokyo, Japan
Ingredient-first French; book before you rethink it.
Gentil H is a Michelin Plate French tasting menu restaurant in Shirokanedai, Tokyo, built around named producers and ingredient transparency. At ¥¥¥, it sits below the city's top French tier in price but not in seriousness — the chef serves each course personally. A reliable choice for a date night or quiet celebration without the ¥¥¥¥ commitment.
Gentil H earns its Michelin Plate recognition (2024 and 2025) by doing something specific well: French cooking built around ingredient transparency, where the menu names producers and growing regions rather than showcasing technique for its own sake. At ¥¥¥ pricing, it sits a tier below Tokyo's high-end French flagships like L'Effervescence or Sézanne, making it the more accessible entry point if you want thoughtful French tasting menu work in this city without committing to a ¥¥¥¥ spend. Book it for a date night, a quiet celebration, or any occasion where you want the chef's full attention — he personally serves the dishes.
Gentil H is on the second floor of a building in Shirokanedai, one of Minato City's quieter, more residential corners. The address is far enough from the Roppongi or Ginza circuits that you won't find tourists wandering in — the clientele is local and deliberate. That spatial remove matters: this is not a venue built for visibility or foot traffic. It's a room designed for a contained, focused meal.
The tasting menu architecture here follows a clear philosophy: harmony of flavours first, with temperature, fragrance, and texture treated as structural tools rather than flourishes. The menu lists producing regions and named producers alongside each course, which functions both as gratitude to suppliers and as a transparency signal to diners. You are not eating an abstraction of French cuisine , you are eating ingredients from specific places, assembled by a chef who has made sourcing part of the narrative. The bread comes from a baker who is a classmate of the chef, and the tea is sourced from Shizuoka, the chef's home prefecture. These are not incidental details: they define the register of the meal. The links are personal, the sourcing is local-to-Japan where possible, and the result is a tasting progression that reads as coherent rather than composed for visual effect.
The chef serving the dishes directly is worth noting for a special occasion context. In many restaurants at this tier, food arrives via a front-of-house team that may or may not be able to explain what they're carrying. Here, the intention is that the person who cooked the course delivers it , which changes the information available to you at the table, and changes the energy of the room. For a celebration meal, that directness tends to land better than formal service choreography.
With a 4.5 rating across 154 Google reviews, gentil H maintains strong diner satisfaction for its price tier. That number is consistent with a restaurant that delivers reliably rather than one generating polarised reactions , the signature of a tightly controlled operation with a clear point of view. Compare that against the critical noise around larger, more ambitious French addresses in Tokyo, and gentil H looks like a safer bet for consistent quality on a specific night.
If you are planning a Tokyo dining itinerary that extends beyond French, the broader restaurant scene is worth mapping in advance. Our full Tokyo restaurants guide covers the range of options across cuisines and price tiers. For those extending to other cities, HAJIME in Osaka and Gion Sasaki in Kyoto are worth considering for multi-city itineraries built around ingredient-driven tasting menus. If you want French comparisons outside Japan, Les Amis in Singapore and Hotel de Ville Crissier represent the regional and European benchmarks respectively.
For those exploring Tokyo more broadly, our Tokyo hotels guide, bars guide, and experiences guide provide the surrounding context to build a complete stay. Further afield, akordu in Nara, Goh in Fukuoka, 1000 in Yokohama, and 6 in Okinawa round out a regional picture for ingredient-focused tasting menus across Japan.
Location: 5 Chome-18-17 GOLD FOREST 2F, Shirokanedai, Minato City, Tokyo 108-0071. Cuisine: French tasting menu. Price tier: ¥¥¥. Booking difficulty: Easy. Reservations: Advance booking recommended; given the small, focused format and chef-served approach, walk-ins are unlikely to be accommodated. Book ahead to be safe, though availability is generally accessible. Dress: Smart casual is appropriate for this tier and neighbourhood; formal dress is not required but will not feel out of place. Leading for: Date nights, quiet celebrations, solo diners who want a complete tasting experience without the theatre of larger French rooms.
If you want to compare gentil H against other French options in Tokyo before booking, ESqUISSE and Florilège both operate at ¥¥¥ and offer different takes on contemporary French in the city. Château Restaurant Joël Robuchon sits at the formal, high-spend end of the spectrum if the occasion demands it. Our Tokyo wineries guide is also worth checking if natural wine or producer-focused drinking is part of your evening plan.
Book at least 2 to 3 weeks ahead. Gentil H is a small second-floor room in a quiet residential pocket of Shirokanedai, not a high-volume venue, and Michelin Plate recognition in both 2024 and 2025 has raised its profile. No booking platform or phone number is publicly listed, so your first step is finding the current reservation channel before a date fills.
This is a small, chef-driven French tasting room — not a format built for large parties. Groups of four or more should check the venue's official channels before assuming availability; the setup favours pairs and solo diners over group bookings. For larger gatherings at ¥¥¥ French in Tokyo, Florilège has more infrastructure for that format.
At ¥¥¥, it is worth it if ingredient provenance and a personal chef-serves-every-dish format matter to you. The menu lists producing regions and producers, and the chef delivers each course personally — a level of intentionality you do not always get at this price tier. If you want more ambience or a longer wine programme, L'Effervescence at a similar tier delivers that better.
Yes. The chef-serves format and the focus on communicating the recipe's intention make solo dining here more engaging than at venues where dishes are dropped and explained in passing. The Shirokanedai setting is low-key, which suits a solo visit without the self-consciousness of a louder destination restaurant.
If you want French cooking that foregrounds ingredient sourcing — with producers named on the menu and Shizuoka-origin bread and tea rounding out the experience — then yes. The 2024 and 2025 Michelin Plate recognitions confirm that the kitchen is executing consistently. If a more technique-driven or theatrically plated French tasting menu is what you are after, Florilège or ESqUISSE will suit you better.
There is no confirmed bar counter at gentil H based on available information. The venue operates from a second-floor space in a residential building in Shirokanedai, and the format appears to be seated tasting menu only. Confirm seating options directly when you make a reservation.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
