For our past few visits to Tokyo we have been wanting to have a meal at Il Ristorante Luca Fantin. This restaurant is part of the ever diversifying Bulgari brand, and is located on the 9th floor of the Bulgari Ginza Tower. We have previously enjoyed champagne and chocolate in the bar and can finally say we have eaten at Bulgari.
This year, on a miserably wet day, we managed to have lunch at Il Ristorante. There are three options for lunch, each with a set number of courses (3, 5 or 7) all with an amuse bouche (or three) first and for dinner, two meus with either 5 or 7 courses plus amuse bouche.
After ascending to the 9th floor you are greeted and taken through to the dining room. Floor to ceiling windows line three sides of the room, giving views of Ginza. Tables are all substantial wood, covered with a delightful golden coloured tablecloth. Our seasonal flower on the table was a magnificent purple hydrangea. Silverware was all Bulgari designed and made.
First to the table was an amazing selection of breads and rolls. Accompanied by some sensational Italian extra virgin olive oil and Hawaiian black salt and sea salt flakes. They are really generous with the bread as they refilled another two times.
Our first amuse was two types of “crackers”. Corn chip with an aioli, and fish skin cracker with a piquant sauce.
Our second amuse bouche was finely sliced snow pea topped with salmon roe.
And our final amuse was corn crisp with smoke mascarpone cheese and corn chowder.
Insalata di verdure cotte e crude con crema di parmigiano (Raw and cooked vegetables with parmesan cream). This dish consisted of 20 types of vegetables either cooked or raw served with a very tasty parmesan cream sauce. This was an absolutely tasty and delicious dish. Some of the vegetables used were baby crrots, asparagus, baby turnips, 8 types of lettuce, flowers and more.
Spaghetti di Gragnano con gamberi rossi e lattuga (Gragnano spaghetti with red shrimp and lettuce). Thick spaghetti from Gragnano near Naples, served with red prawns and a creamy shellfish sauce with iceberg lettuce tossed through it. A nice big piece of dried lettuce was used for the garnish.
Baba’ bagnato al rhum con flan di pompelmo (Baba’ marinated with rum and grapefruit flan). I live a Rum baba and feel they are under rated as a dessert. This was a wedge of baba sitting atop grapefruit flan (like creme brulee), pistachio crumbles, pink grapefruit segment, vanilla ice cream and a sugar wafer ontop. So pretty it looked like a landscape in a terrarium.
We thought we were finished but no. A box of sweet “jewels” was bought out for us, along with some chocolate and coffee lollipops.
I have to say lunch was well worth the wait, and we will definitely be dining at Il Ristorante Luca Fantin when we next return to Tokyo.
Bulgari Ginza Tower
2-7-12 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
http://www.bulgarihotels.com/en-us/tokyo-osaka-restaurants/tokyo/il-ristorante
Cooking Across 4 Generations 
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