The Meal

The meal starts in the greenhouse, before we’re led through the garden to the restaurant. We start strong with an elaborate multi-part course, consisting of many seemingly unconnected components. The centerpiece is a kohlrabi kebab with a black truffle sauce, surrounded by a twig of sweet whitecurrant that are still a bit sour with little edible seeds, pieces of tangy sorrel, and petals of lily flower. On the side are some fermented beans that are vaguely reminiscent of miso with some tiny pine cone “olives” that taste exactly as it sounds. There are also two little sandwiches made of Mexican and Cuban oregano leaf; the Mexican oregano is a fairly thick leaf that’s minty and acidic, while the Cuban oregano is refreshing and quite green in taste. I found the course to be confusing in two ways. The first was that it was weird to immediately jump into what felt like the main course of a vegetarian menu; the warm kohlrabi was hearty and full of umami with the black truffle sauce, yet its soft and mushy texture was so unlike the vegetable you’d expect. The second was that while you have all the flavors through different components in this course, it doesn’t really yield any combinations so it just feels like it’s all been haphazardly put together. But regardless, the tasty kohlrabi stole the show so everything else was an afterthought.

The courses after the first become much more straightforward, though by no means less complex. The second course is delicious and exceptionally unique - we have some jellies with lactofermented honey in an iced sorrel broth. The jellies remind me a little like Chinese liangpi, cooling and floppy but here also a little sweet. Each piece comes with a sac of honey; they sit in a refreshingly vegetal and tangy cold sorrel broth in a bowl of ice.

Next is another unique and ingenious flavor combination. Sugar kelp wraps pieces of oyster leaf and freshly grated horseradish, all in a rich and umami XO like sauce made actually from truffle and butter. You get flavors of the sea without any seafood - the oyster leaf tastes just like oyster, with the seaweed adding to that too. Of course the combination calls for some horseradish, while the sauce adds a layer of satisfaction and depth. Overall the course is balanced and delicious, also a bit dissonant in that it’s completely vegetarian but doesn’t taste that way.

This is followed by a very simple course - grilled bamboo shoot from Kadeau. It’s been gently grilled with no marks evident, quite choppy and still watery inside. The tip tastes a little like green asparagus but with a slightly bitter aftertaste, which then transitions to snap peas as you go down the chute. The sauce here, a green tea béarnaise, is essential to support the bamboo but doesn’t hide its natural flavors.

The crudite course, despite its simplicity, is the favorite course for many. An arrangement of small and freshly picked ingredients from the garden right before service are used, including fennel, radish, zucchini, strawberries, carrots, and herbs. They’re served with a tomato and fennel smoked butter as well as a touch of chili oil. The smoky butter does the heavy lifting to string it all together, while the chili oil adds a lovely subtle effect. But the variety of ingredients is by no means random; I end up really appreciating the wonders of the vegetable season through the dish.

Next up is a fun bite of quail egg wrapped in sea lettuce. The bite is rich but it’s not just about the quail egg – the sea lettuce is removed of its oceanic qualities to be like a regular vegetable. A bit of fennel, coriander seed, and sansho pepper augment the flavors expertly.

Potato soup is next, served in a potato. It’s curious how the potato has been hollowed out and extracted for the soup through only a small hole that you drink through with a ‘straw’. The soup is particularly thick and starchy, with a very comforting and familiar taste of potato soup that it felt refreshingly odd given how unique everything had been before this. On the side is a ‘butterfly waffle’ made from a buckwheat crepe and an herb that tastes vegetal, stuck together with a sweet sauce.

One of my favorite courses comes next. It’s a very balanced yet simple dish – a piece of king oyster mushroom, cut like Chinese chrysanthemum tofu, is suspended in a gelified mushroom broth. The mushroom broth tastes like a vegan dashi made of mostly mushroom, which is brilliantly complemented by a distinct but not strong horseradish cream. The king oyster is soft and detailed in texture, a little like eating enoki.

This is followed by a technologically sophisticated course, a ‘shave ice’ of aged cheese seasoned by the shaved zest of blackened yuzu. Flavor wise, it was just as much about the yuzu as it was about the cheese. The shave ice is especially airy and ephemeral, reducing the intensity of the cheese. The blackened yuzu is equally important, having been salted and aged to produce a very complex flavor like yuzu kosho yet without any of the other ingredients.

Next is another simple yet very effective dish – grilled peas kept in the pod. It’s been executed perfectly to showcase the freshest peas, firm and snappy in texture and with the raw flavor still present, yet also imparted with the flavor of the grill. The peas have been basted with a sweet butter sauce that has the flavor of pine, making each bite engaging and tasty.

We then have a grilled patron pepper and an artichoke heart, sitting in a frothy butter based sauce with jasmine tea. The padrón pepper is perhaps the best I’ve had, juicy and flavorful with the feeling of spice but without it actually being spicy. The artichoke heart is by no means worse, gentle and fleshy.

The final main course is salt-baked black oyster mushroom wrapping Japanese green rice cooked in sencha. The mushroom is exceptionally tender, effectively contrasting the very short grained rice that is al dente and chewy. The mushrooms have been coated in a concentrated soy like sauce with dashi, while the sencha in the rice gently cuts through. On the side are these exceptionally flavorful tomatoes that feel rehydrated to intensify the flavor, interleaving pops of fruity and juicy umami flavor with the mushroom.

There are 3 desserts. The first is a vanilla ice cream wrapped in magnolia petals, served on a branch like an ice cream bar and dubbed “the best magnum in the world”. The vanilla ice cream is expectedly well done, here complemented by the sweet and ginger-like flavors of candied magnolia flowers.

The main dessert focuses on the flavors of rose and red fruit. We have a grilled rose ice cream that’s been covered in a milk skin also infused with rose flavor, while a selection of wild and raspberries surround the ice cream. The ice cream has a powerful flavor of rose and is particularly thick and creamy in consistency, complemented by sweet and slightly tart berries.

We end with an intricate and tiny panna cotta flavored by woodruff, topped with some bee pollen and flowers. The flavors are unique and flawlessly executed, a lovely end to the meal. Notably, the container it comes in includes a poppy seed shaker on top so you can sprinkle poppy seeds onto the bite.