Takara Restaurant, Paris: an excellent experience in Europe's oldest Japanese restaurant

Takara offers authentic, top-quality Japanese cuisine in a warm setting in the heart of Paris.

Some things are planned and expected, while others come as a surprise, as in the case of this totally improvised dinner party. As I was just going to have a drink in town, I bumped into a friend of mine who is a restaurateur and with whom I’d had an aperitif. At the end, he says to me “I’ve made a reservation at a Japanese restaurant I want to try, come on, I invite you”. And that’s how I find myself at Takara’s a few minutes later.

The concept

Takara means “treasure” in Japanese, and the restaurant opened in 1958 in the Opéra district, making it the oldest Japanese restaurant in Europe.

This is a restaurant serving traditional Japanese cuisine.

The setting

Sober and warm, I’d describe it as Japanesque.

There’s a bar where you can eat.

Alternatively, you can eat in the main dining room.

The menu

Unsurprisingly, it offers the great classics of Japanese cuisine, as well as set menus.

The dinner

And so we arrive at this restaurant with its excellent reputation, also nicknamed “the canteen of the stars” due to some of its clientele.

We’re warmly welcomed and my friend’s reservation for one is easily transformed into a reservation for two. We’re seated at the bar, where we’re brought a hot oshibori and have an aperitif to start.

I’ll let my friend place the orders, and he’ll choose from the Sukiyaki menu, to which he’ll add scallop sashimi, prawn tempura and sushi.

Not all staff speak French: orders will be placed in English, but service will be provided in French.

After a few minutes, we were invited to sit down in the dining room, as a table had finally become available. In fact, I think they didn’t want to block off a table of two for just one person, as the restaurant was full and they had originally planned to seat my friend at the bar, but as there were two of us in the end, they repositioned us in the dining room.

First we’ll be served scallop sashimi.

The raw material is fresh and of excellent quality. The scallops are on ice and even the sauce served with them is fine. Very good

Then come the two starters of the day from the menu. We’re not sure what they are.

Good and fresh. It’s a pity that Japanese cuisine isn’t spicy like other Asian cuisines, because it would have been perfect with a little spice.

Next comes omakase sashimi (fatty tuna, salmon, sea bream, chinchar, oyster), accompanied by sushis (fatty tuna and sea urchin).

Very good and fresh, nothing to complain about.

Then the prawn tempura.

I’m always wary of tempura, which often oozes grease and lacks finesse. While I’ve eaten some excellent ones at the St Regis Kuala Lumpur‘s Japanese restaurant, my experiences have generally been mixed.

This will be an excellent surprise: they’re not greasy, not much flour and frying compared to the quantity of prawns, and it tastes great.

Then comes the highlight of the show: the Sukiyaki. It’s a dish made with thin slices of beef, sliced vegetables, Chinese cabbage, leeks, onions, mushrooms, etc. cooked in a soy sauce-based broth in a cast-iron casserole dish, then dipped in beaten raw egg.

The casserole is brought to the table.