Margotto e Baciare

Verdict

If you've already done the French-Japanese tasting menu circuit in Tokyo and want something technically sharper and conceptually stranger, Margotto e Baciare is worth your evening. Chef Kenta Kayama has built a restaurant around a single ingredient — truffle — and applies Japanese culinary logic to a French base in ways that produce genuinely disorienting results: kombu dashi consommé served in wine glasses, truffle paired with fried egg on toast, raw egg on rice finished with shavings of black or white truffle. It holds a Michelin Plate and ranks #505 on the 2025 Opinionated About Dining Japan list. The price tier is ¥¥¥, which makes it meaningfully more accessible than most of its comparison set. Book it if the truffle format intrigues you; skip it if you want a broad tasting menu or a representative French meal.

What This Kitchen Does

The technical premise at Margotto e Baciare is unusual enough to deserve explanation. The restaurant's name is a creative spelling of marugoto, the Japanese word for "the whole thing," and whole truffles, rather than shaved garnish, are the organizing principle of the menu. Guests can select a single bead of their preferred truffle variety, the kitchen constructs dishes around it. That format demands a different kind of culinary discipline than a conventional tasting menu: Kayama can't rely on the arc of courses to carry the experience. Each dish has to justify the truffle's presence on its own terms.

What prevents this from being a novelty act is the Japanese technique underpinning the French frame. Kombu dashi consommé is not a French preparation, but serving it in a wine glass to concentrate the fragrance is a sensory decision that borrows from both traditions with genuine purpose. The pairing of truffle with tamago kake gohan, raw egg on rice, is an example of Kayama applying Japanese comfort-food logic to an ingredient that French cuisine typically treats with formality. The result is approachable in texture and intensity, which is an unusual quality for a truffle-focused restaurant. If you've dined here before and worked through the more classical pairings, the egg-and-rice preparation is the direction to push toward on a return visit.

Michelin's Plate designation confirms technical competence; the Opinionated About Dining ranking (up from #456 in 2024 to #505 in 2025, note this is a rank number shift within a large list, not a quality decline) reflects consistent recognition among serious diners tracking the Japan restaurant circuit.

Who Should Book

Margotto e Baciare is a strong choice for a returning visitor to Tokyo who has already covered the headline French restaurants, L'Effervescence, Sézanne, and wants something with a tighter, more singular concept. It also works for solo diners looking for an intimate counter-style environment where a focused menu removes the need to negotiate choices. The dinner-only format (6–11 pm, Monday through Saturday, closed Sunday) means there is no lunch option to consider; Sunday visitors to Nishiazabu will need to look elsewhere.

If your priority is the broadest possible expression of French technique in Tokyo, L'Effervescence or HOMMAGE deliver a more conventional tasting-menu architecture. If you want kaiseki-inflected Japanese precision, RyuGin is the stronger call. Margotto e Baciare is for the diner who wants to eat a single ingredient prepared across multiple registers, who finds that constraint interesting rather than limiting.

For context on the broader Tokyo dining circuit, our full Tokyo restaurants guide covers the range from neighbourhood spots to three-star destinations. Elsewhere in Japan, the French-Japanese fusion tradition runs through HAJIME in Osaka and akordu in Nara, both of which offer useful comparison points if you're building a wider itinerary. For the kaiseki tradition outside Tokyo, Gion Sasaki in Kyoto and Goh in Fukuoka are worth knowing.

Practical Details

The address is Ryowa Palace 西麻布 1F, 4-2-6 Nishiazabu, Minato City, a ground-floor location in a residential part of Nishiazabu, close to the Hiroo and Roppongi axis. Plan your evening around the neighbourhood: our Tokyo bars guide and Tokyo hotels guide cover the surrounding area. If you're building a longer stay, the Tokyo experiences guide and Tokyo wineries guide are also available. For French-Japanese contemporary comparisons in other cities, Per Se in New York and The French Laundry in Napa define the Western end of the tradition. Closer to home, sio in Tokyo and Crony offer further points of comparison within the innovative French category. Harutaka is the reference point if premium ingredients in an intimate Tokyo setting is the draw and you're open to sushi rather than French. For creative cooking that reaches toward the regional and experimental, 1000 in Yokohama and 6 in Okinawa extend the Japan circuit further.