Recommended reviews and articles about this restaurant:  Bloomberg  /  Condé Nast Traveler  /  Daum.net  / 
The Economist  /  Felicimme (Japanese)  /  JapanToday feature  /  JapanToday review  /  Ricette the Kitchen (Japanese)  /  The Star Online  /  Stella Madison Lifestyle (French) /  sunday_driver  /  TIME Europe  /  Wcities

"In December 2004, the Alain Ducasse Group established its first Tokyo restaurant at the top of the Chanel Tower. For the first time in the history of either the luxury or catering industries, Chanel Japon and the Alain Ducasse Group decided for this project to conclude a joint-venture agreement. Their partnership is the first of its kind in the world. It shows the extent of the importance attached to the Ginza Project by both partners. It also testifies to the great trust that binds them.

Alain Ducasse said: 'With Chanel, I uncovered the human aspect and the passion for creating which are also essential values in our world based on the art of good living and eating.'

Everything started with the meeting of two men: Richard Collasse, President of Chanel Japon and Alain Ducasse, creator in art of living.

The Chanel Building in Ginza, the most prestigious avenue in Tokyo, will be exceptional. The wish of Richard Collasse was for this building to be a space worthy of the entire know-how and refinement of the famous Paris establishment. Alain Ducasse took up the challenge: to establish a restaurant in line with this background, drawing inspiration from it and serving its interests.
____________

A restaurant steeped in the Chanel spirit

Alain Ducasse hates concepts – marketing ideas smacking of fakery.  The Chef wants his restaurants to tell a story. In Ginza, the story was probably whispered to him by Mademoiselle herself…

Located on the last floor of the building, the restaurant will be resolutely French. 'Well, we’re not going to teach the Japanese how to make sushi, right?' exclaims the Chef. But trust Alain Ducasse to introduce French cuisine at its most contemporary and universal at the same time. Everyone knows the extent to which, for this Chef, the products used are paramount and how the dishes prepared should honor them, with all the respect the craftsman-creator owed to show for their nobleness. 'In a country with a cooking tradition as rich and old as in Japan, the best—and only—approach, is to trust the discernment of our clients. Because their cooking culture is strong, they will know how to appreciate a sophisticated cuisine, however different it may be from their own.'

This standpoint will lead Alain Ducasse to dare audacious shortcuts as a way of paying homage to the Chanel spirit. One example: food will be addressed as a collection. 'Fashion lives to the beat of the seasons, with its colors, materials and shapes. Our menu will play along this concept, which is so appropriate to food. We too, live to the rhythm of the seasons!'

In this restaurant, everything will follow the Chanel style: staff uniforms were designed by Karl Lagerfeld himself. And Alain Ducasse immersed himself in the values of the great Parisian creator to design, with the close collaboration of Peter Marino, the building’s architect, and of Dominique Moncourtois, International Director of Make-Up Creation, the showcase of such French cuisine.

'This restaurant will be a space offering various foods, explains the Chef. Open all day long, the atmosphere will change hour by hour… as the city does, as the building does, as the mood of the clients who will visit it in turn throughout the day does.' And one can easily guess that dinner will be a particularly elegant moment since the restaurant will remain open after the shop closing time.

Audacity, perfection, exclusiveness, passion, avant-garde… Alain Ducasse was inspired by everything that makes up the Chanel world – because these words are also somehow his. Thank you, Mademoiselle for having whispered your story in the Chef’s ears. In return he will gratify us with delicious and blissful moments."

__________

Photographs ©Lyu Hanabusa. Used by permission.

DininginFrance.com encourages you to read our privacy policy.

Copyright © 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 Internaire.  All rights reserved.