Quintessence

Quintessence is Chef Shuzo Kishida’s long argument that French cooking gets better the more you take away. He trained at Paris’s L’Astrance under Pascal Barbot, and his Shinagawa room is gloriously stripped back — no music, barely any décor, nothing to distract you from the plate. The menu is rewritten daily, so nobody gets the same dinner twice, all of it built on his trinity of product, flame and seasoning. Ask anyone who’s been and they’ll bring up the goat-milk bavarois and a meringue ice cream that has no business being that good. Three Michelin stars since 2008, and a reservation worth rearranging a trip for.