It's the perfect setting for a casual fine-dining experience in the heart of Osaka.
Chef de cuisine Christopher Gibert started working at La Baie as a sous chef back in 2002 and was promoted to his current post in 2006, leading the French fine-dining restaurant to Michelin 1-star honor in 2009 (but losing it in 2016). Prior to joining La Baie, he has worked in the kitchens of Lucas Carton (Paris) and Hotel Negresco (Nice) learning the fundamentals of traditional French cuisine.
Amuse bouche comprised of three interesting nibbles starting with a small cheese tart, meringue with dashi cream and finishing with an egg custard with lobster jelly and raw shrimp, a clever play on the traditional Japanese egg custard.
Some really tasty homemade bread.....
And salted and seaweed butter to match them.
Starting things off for us was La Baie's most popular dish, Kegani crab effilochée with jelly tart, tomato, avocado and crustacean coulis. It is a classic example of how chef Gibert marries traditional French recipe (in this case, Escoffier) with seasonal Japanese ingredients. The Kegani crab effilochée was really soft, pillowy and very delicious. It was a lovely match with the jelly tart (made with marinated turnip and jasmine rice cream) for the excellent texture and flavor profiles.
More Japanese ingredients came our way in the next starter, grilled Iwagaki oyster with seaweed jelly, cucumber and dill vinaigrette. This was another superb dish with a great balance of richness and intensity coming from the sweetness of the oyster, acidity from the cucumber, dill vinaigrette and earthiness of the seaweed jelly and they all came together beautifully.
For me, I was having roasted Japanese langoustine in a butter and red pepper fondue.
This was a very elegant dish and well-designed one as well. On top of the roasted langoustine was a thin layer of mousse made with the coral and jus of the langoustine making the flavors even richer and more enjoyable.
Following three really impressive starters, everyone's looking forward to the main courses and that was kicked off by a crispy amadai on a bed of zucchini compote flavored with marjolaine. There was a scoop of green olives on the side to provide some mild acidity to the mix.
I dropped some extra cash for the roasted wagyu beef. The succulent wagyu was really tender and juicy but I thought the accompanying coffee butter, truffle and bone marrow were all too heavy in their supporting roles.
There was no question that the best main dish was the charcoal-grilled pigeon breast with the leg and liver wrapped in grape leaf. The intense sauce looked a bit like a liver sauce at first glance but it turned out to be made with the pigeon bones and flesh.
This was seriously delicious. Thought the orange purée was particularly nice to offset the richness of the pigeon.
As much as we hated to see the end of our savory dishes, it was time for our pre-dessert, which was a foamy mascarpone cheese with strawberry and crushed nuts. Pretty refreshing.
Our opinions were divided when it came to the dessert department. Most of us didn't like the American cherry tart with tonka bean flavored butter milk, chocolate cream, caramelized cherry and cherry sorbet. There was a lot of acidity but not enough sweetness to back it up.
More successful was the second dessert, verbena tart with lemon custard cream, roasted peach, peach jelly and peach sorbet. The different textures of peach seemed to combine really well with the verbena tart, crystallized raspberry and raspberry coulis.
Some lovely petite fours for everyone - apricot marshmallow, chocolate tart and macaron from left to right.
Chef Gibert’s modern French cuisine is an exciting one that marries traditional French recipes with some of the freshest Japanese ingredients. He proves today that it doesn’t take the most expensive ingredients to produce the most heartwarming dishes.
Note: Like most fine dining restaurants in Japan, La Baie has a children’s policy but they are kind enough to waive it on the weekends (lunch service only). That’s a big plus for foodies with small kids like us.
Food Rating: 7/10
Price: ￥￥￥￥
Address: : 5/F Ritz Carlton Osaka, 2-5-25 Umeda, Kita-ku, Osaka, 530-0001 Japan
Closest Metro Station: Nishi-Umeda
Tel: +81 6-6343-7020
Website: www.ritzcarlton.com/en/hotels/japan/osaka/dining/la-baie
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