Tapas Molecular Bar

A Gastronomical Trip through a Fantasy Storybook in Tokyo, Japan

Along with Sezanne, Tapas Molecular Bar was the anchor of our Tokyo trip. Located inside the 38th floor of the Mandarin Oriental hotel, we were walked from the lobby into the lounge to wait for the team to get ready for the seating. We were surprised to learn that the restaurant was actually in the middle of the lounge, and we were all seated around the counters of an open kitchen, watching the chefs work.

Normally, there are only eight seats per service, but as we added a person at the last moment, they were kind enough to add a ninth seat for our party.

We were greeted by Chef Kenzo Ushikubo, who has been working at the restaurant for 11 years. In fact, one of my friends took out his phone and showed us a picture from his last visit in 2016 showing himself at the counter and Chef Kenzo working the kitchen.

Chef Kenzo was extremely friendly, telling us his story of moving from Vancouver to pursue his culinary journey in Japan, and spending the last 14 years working here. He encouraged us to ask questions, take photos and was explaining each dish, its preparation, the inspirations for each dish and what was going on.

The experience was presented through a professionally printed storybook, featuring a story written and illustrated by the chef himself. Every turn of a page represented a different dish in the dinner.

The menu changes every five months, along with the storybook, and Chef Kenzo explained the work involved in preparing new menus, sourcing new ingredients, developing the concept of each dish and the plating, writing a new story, illustrating each page and printing the books every time the menu changed. We were told that the latest menu had just changed 3 days before our visit, so the chefs were still adapting to the new menu. We were not given the above menu, but I was able to find it on the Mandarin Oriental’s website afterwards. Instead, we navigated the storybook one page at a time.

True to its name, Tapas Molecular Bar highlights a lot of small dishes using molecular gastronomy. Initially popularized by Heston Blumenthal, molecular gastronomy often uses science in the form of exotic chemical reactions, temperatures, or scents to create unique dishes that excite all the senses - touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste.

The first dish was called “Circles and Spheres” and played with spherification of various liquids. It used three kinds of radish braised in a traditional oden preparation, caviar, spherified white wine jelly, a single white sphere of Mascarpone cheese along with some microgreens on top of a bed of beef tartare. The creaminess of the cheese and the brininess of the caviar combined well with the beef tartare to provide a very interesting start to the meal, and the dish was a big hit.

Chef Kenzo explained his second dish as his signature dish on this menu, and it was called “My Missing Button”. A small button made from wild boar meat and sweet figs pressed on to a crispy quinoa wafer, which was served in a small treasure chest full of real buttons and filled with smoke. A really neat concept, and a bit of subtle sweetness from the pickles worked well with the gaminess of the boar meat, and the crisp of the quinoa cracker added some interesting texture to the button.

The third dish held a surprise and was named, “Mother’s Special Home Cooking”. On the surface, it looked and tasted like a soft-boiled egg surrounded by king crab meat in a Chinese-style brown crab sauce topped with gold stars. After eating the dish, Chef Kenzo told us that there was actually no egg in the dish at all - the egg was actually created using pumpkin and soy milk. Until he broke the surprise, we had absolutely no suspicion at all - the textures and flavours were exactly like a regular chicken egg!

Continuing into the abstract, the next dish was called “Lines, Lines, Lines, Squares and Rectangles”. Precisely cut recangles of a wrapper, some condiments, spiny lobster, a crisp wafer and various condiments were assembled into an intricate structure, and we were told to roll the wrapper and dip it into precisely placed line of sauce. This dish had a variety of flavours and textures - crisp from the wafer, juicy give from the lobster, sweet from some pickled radish and carrots, a few flavoured pocky-like sticks, sauced with a sauce most similar to hosin sauce. The inspiration was supposed to be Indian, with chaat masala, onion and curry oil flavourings, but the closest comparison I can think of would be a Peking duck wrap, except with lobster instead of duck skin. Very well executed, and another big hit.

The next dish was very interesting, and presented as “My Perfect Home”. A caterpillar made from tile fish, with the scales blistered with hot oil to produce a crispy crust. This was topped with a nori powder and microgreens. A home for the caterpillar was made out of hatcho miso and also dusted with nori powder. The tile fish was perfectly done and the the crisp crunchiness from the blistered scales was amazing, but the rest of the dish was a bit forgettable.

Continuing the story of the caterpillar, the next dish represented the time spent inside the cocoon. A unique dish with a playful component, we were told to look through the hole in the top of the lid, and we were not able to see anything, leading to the name, “It’s dark in here…”. We were told to bring our ear to the hole in the lid and listen closely, and we could hear a consistent crackling and popping inside the dish, from some pop rock candy interacting with the sauce. We removed the lid to find a dab of rich how sauce, a dark lattice biscuit and some fall apart tender octopus with a rich squid ink sauce, with a bit of sweetness from the pop rock candy.

The next dish, “The Lonely Butterfly”, finished the story of the caterpillar. The chef pulled out a soft pillow for the preparation and start slicing thin slices. At first I thought he was cleaning his knife, but he laughed and quickly explained he was making thin slices of cotton candy. The cotton candy cocoon was made and we were told to drop the entire cocoon into the shot glass of hot liquid and to swirl quickly. The cocoon dissolved to reveal a tiny butterfly. We were told to drink the entire concoction and it turned out that it was a rich, concentrated consommé that was slow cooked for days, with the butterfly adding a bit of texture.

Moving into the mains, the next dish was “Maybe I was a Duck”, containing a medallion of Kyoto duck breast seasoned with Peking duck spices, half a cauliflower fritter in a extremely light batter, some slow cooked “bird food” grain mixture, with a pickled plum sauce and a plum wine foam. This dish just worked really well together - juicy, medium duck with a rich, tangy sauce, and a little bit of texture for contrast.

The final main was A4 wagyu sirloin that was marinaded in miso and left to age for 5 days. The chef mentioned that he didn’t like like using a5 for steaks as there was too much fat. Entitled, “Or was I the Cow?”, the perfectly medium rare steak was smoked in a pot with some hay, sliced and plated with black truffle and crispy burdock root. This was topped with a miso mushroom sauce to add a bit of earthiness. Really big hit, a variety of textures and flavours all working really well together.

A sudden wakefulness without a corresponding dish, and back to the dream.

Moving into the desserts, the dream took us to space, where we had “Breakfast on another planet”. It is extremely cold in space, and the next few dishes were made with liquid nitrogen. Using a variety of freeze dried marshmallows, flower petals, cereal flakes, granola, seeds and finely shaved frozen yoghurt the chef “stir-fried” the mixture in a wok of liquid nitrogen.

This was served in glass bowls with a syringe of Hibiki whiskey infused honey. Really neat. Whenever ice cream is made with liquid nitrogen, the rapid freezing time results in microscopic ice crystals leading to a very delicate and light texture. The tanginess of the frozen yoghurt offset by the sweetness of the boozy honey, and another big hit for the night.

The next dessert was called “A strange alien who trying to create what he thinks is earth food” and used a metal ladle full of liquid nitrogen dipped into a hot sweet potato mousse, the temperature transfer through the ladle formed a shell of ice cream that was delicately removed from the ladle and served with sake lees (the byproduct of sake brewing) and brown sugar.

A very unique dish - “Space-choco to be delivered to his friend”, deliberately made without any cacao. The “chocolate” was made with adzuki bean shell, a sweetened caramel layer and the crispy wafer underneath was made with rice bran. This tasted exactly like a chocolate bar, and if he chef didn’t explain to us, we would’ve just thought it was a homemade chocolate bar!

Finally, “a present from an alien that looks just like daddy”, burnt soy sauce macaroons with a buckwheat tea filling, frozen in liquid nitrogen. We were told to pop it into our mouth and chew quickly. The cold of the macaroons released water vapour and a cloud of smoke came billowing out of our noses and mouths as we crunched down on the freeze dried macaroons.

At this point, an alarm clock went off, signifying time to wake up, and the end of the meal. I wasn’t sure what to expect when booking a “molecular gastronomy” restaurant, and was a bit afraid of the weird science overwhelming the food. Personally, I thought the dishes were really well put together, particularly the duck and the steak, even if the story was a bit abstract. Well worth the experience, a really unique meal and I look forward to seeing if chef Kenzo will still be running the show another 8 years from now.

Total damage: 30k JPY/head