Restaurant - European business meals

Finding the right place to hold a business meal in Tokyo is child's play. The Japanese capital has more Michelin-starred restaurants than Paris - to our credit, the Japanese capital also has 13.5 million inhabitants, compared with just 2.5 million in Paris itself - and around twenty of them are French. With a choice of big names like Troisgros at the Hyatt Regency or Robuchon at the Atelier or, more original, Japanese chefs who have successfully adopted our culinary traditions, like Manabu Ichizuka at the Crown or Shuzo Kishida at the Quintessence. There is, however, a third adventurous path, that of innovative European cuisine, blurring boundaries, traditions and techniques. With Heinz Beck, an atypical chef who trained in Germany but has been based in Rome since the 1990s, where he orchestrated La Pergola, the restaurant at the Waldorf-Astoria, you can feel at home in a European universe without having to give up new flavours and sensations.

Awarded three stars in the Eternal City since 2005, the most Italian of German chefs cultivates a real passion for Japan. This is what motivated him to open his Tokyo restaurant barely a year ago. There, on the edge of the Imperial Palace, Antonio Strammiello, his loyal second-in-command, serves up creations concocted with impeccable technique. Although most of the produce comes from nearby farms, the menu is almost identical to that of the Roman table. This may seem surprising, given the strong Japanese influence: yuzu and lemongrass sauce to accompany the fish, tuna carpaccio with wasabi mayonnaise, exquisitely tender veal with soy sauce... Only the fagotelli are a clear reminder of Italy. As for the Germanic touch, it lies in the precision of the cooking and the presentation. The 11 shades of raspberry (crunchy, melting, frosted, meringue...) are a blend of German expressionism and Japanese poetry.