We dropped by the opening of R2 Supper Club on Friday — staying only long enough for a single drink and then retreating in the face of the wall-to-wall crowds. But it put us in the mood for wine, and good food to go with it. So we decided to chance our luck at Les Vinum, a short taxi ride away in Nishi-Azabu. Most fortuitously, there were two free seats at the counter just waiting for us.
Plenty has changed at Les Vinum since I first discovered it and wrote it up, soon after it opened in 2005. It's now almost totally Western in feel — no chopsticks on the table; a bread basket is supplied; and very few Japanese side dishes. What hasn't changed is the buzz and enthusiasm in the compact unpretentious dining room. Hardly surprising: good wine and charcoal-grilled meats are one of the finest combinations in the book.
They have also kept their policy of offering a cluster of wines for ¥4,400, though the selection is rather smaller than in the past. We were more interested in the small list of recent arrivals chalked on the blackboard. One in particular caught our eye: Raices 1, a 1998 "super-vino de mesa" that's long been a favorite of ours.
Here's a close-up of the label for this rather excellent Spanish "Rhone clone" which is hard to get our hands on here these days...
There was a Japanese touch in our otoshi (obligatory starter): a demitasse of rich savory chawanmushi egg custard. This, though, was prepared from chicken stock rather than fish-based dashi. Steaming hot and appetizing, a great way to prime the taste buds and the stomach...
Our first starter was a chilled consomme jelly with fresh sashimi uni and small tender shrimp...
Our second was a hearty bouillabaisse-style fish soup, with cheese and spicy rouille...
But those were just the preliminaries. The centerpiece of the kitchen is the charcoal grill, tended carefully and constantly by chef Saito, the no-nonsense grillmeister.
Right now he has a nice range of gibiers, over and above his usual menu, including pigeon and quail from Scotland. You can see some of the waterfowl hanging in an overhead closet.
We ordered up a cut of Ezo-jika (Hokkaido venison)...
It took an hour or so, cooked low-and-slow, carefully browning the outside and basting it with wine-rich jus... but leaving the meat inside lovely and red and rare...
Served with a compote of red cabbage and a gravy of that self-same jus, it was a perfect match with our wine..
Here's Les Vinum's web site...
