The restaurant is beautiful and minimalist with wood accents and Japanese ceramics and clothing on display. The bar is well stocked, with a range of Japanese whiskys, sake and sochu. Always my favorite in any restaurant, the open kitchen borders on one half one the restaurant.
The bartender is super friendly. I'd never had shochu before and after chatting about how it fits into different cocktails, he brought out some samples. Quite a difference between barley and sweet potato distilled liquor. I had his take on Moscow Mule, made with his own ginger beer. He also made a vesper, substituting shochu for vodka, which was a delicious drink, too. I recommend Shibumi on the drinks alone!
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| Moscow Mule with house made ginger beer |
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| Sashimi |
Once the small plates started coming, it got real. The food ranged from vinegary and sweet shrimp and pickled cucumbers to savory cuttlefish stuffed with sausage. It was an eye opening evening; I don't think of sausage as a typical Japanese dish.
Soft boiled eggs are hard to come by in restaurants and I was pleasantly surprised by the soft egg with roe. The egg was perfectly creamy and the roe popped with the freshness of the sea. It's less salty than caviar and was a beautiful treat. I will replicate this at home for sure.
The chef, Eric Stapelman, came out and visited our table a few times. He shared that shibumi means always striving for perfection and it shows in his food. There was one dish that the restaurant was too dark for me to capture a picture and it was quite possibly the highlight of the evening. A piece of poached salmon was wrapped in tofu skin, packaged up as a little gift drizzled with a savory nage. Each bite was blissful, but in a later discussion with the chef, he said he was considering swapping the salmon with his house made sausage - demonstrating how he's always trying to perfect what he does.
The evening wrapped up with black sesame ice cream, beautifully served with an edible flower. The black sesame impart a vaguely coffee flavor to the ice cream and the whole sesame give it a little crunch.
The new menu launches Wednesday April 15th and will delight your senses. Stretch your eating boundaries, try a new cuisine and enjoy some great cocktails.
Disclaimer: I was not compensated for this post, but I was given an awesome dinner and drinks. As always, the opinions are mine and I'm looking forward to coming back to this restaurant.
