Perched on the top floors of the skyscraping Otemachi Tower, the luxurious Aman Tokyo is just a 10-minute walk from Tokyo Station and is even closer from where we were staying. I have been secretly looking forward to this meal at Arva, the hotel's contemporary Italian restaurant. Let's see if it can live up to its hype.
I have never had the pleasure of staying at an Aman establishment before (nor enter one) so this was definitely a breath of fresh air. It's probably not as exclusive and out-of-the-world as other Amans since it's still very much in the heart of the city but the combination of luxury, elegance and exclusivity, it's hard not to be impressed.
Perhaps if I work a little harder, I could afford to stay here for just one night.
Arva is a dining concept conceived by Stefano Artosin, regional executive chef of Amanpuri (Thailand), Amansara (Cambodia) and Amantaka (Laos), and Andrea Torre, executive chef of Aman China. But other than that, there's not much information about the restaurant. All I knew was that they have put a strong focus on Japanese ingredients making it more appealing to the Asian palate.
They put us outside the 30-seat main dining room which was a rather clever move considering that there was a naughty boy dining with us tonight.
Some welcome bites including a couple of marinated octopus and shrimps, pickled cauliflower and finally, smoked eggplant with barley. All were quite decent.
Ora King salmon, Hokkaido potato, dill, olive (2,800 yen) - This was ordered by yours truly. I thought it was going to be cured like a gravlax with a lot of flavors in it but honestly, it was pretty bland to me. The potato cream, dill and olive did very little (if any) to enhance the flavors of the fish.
Marinated Hokkaido scallop, Chioggia beet, green caviar (3,200 yen) - The menu said "marinated Hokkaido scallop" but again the seasoning was very very light. In fact, I could hardly tell it's been marinated at all. But I guess it's a good thing considering how fresh and sweet the raw Hokkaido scallops were. We really don't need to pepper them with all sorts of cream and sauce. Just a bit of green caviar, green onion and sea salt already made them very heavenly. And I love the variations of artichoke (poached and chip) there for the additional textures. To me, the best dish of the night (albeit an average one overall).
Pappardelle with boar meat ragout, porcini (2,800 yen) - The homemade pappardelle was pretty nice and it was complemented well with a flavorful sauce made with boar meat from Mie Prefecture and porcini. But I wasn't happy with their work in pacing this meal at all. We have just started with our starters. As a matter of fact, I was still taking photos of them and our two pasta dishes and main suddenly arrived. Our server obviously didn't care and not surprisingly, the pappardelle cooled off considerably when I finally got the chance to check it out. But not until the beautiful sauce that came with it had dried up when it reached my mouth.
Roasted Spanish Iberico pork Bellota, Aomori garlic, Takinogawa burdock root, hazelnut (4,400 yen) - Another dish that was sitting around while we were enjoying our starters. This was reasonably good but why would we think otherwise, coming from an Aman restaurant!?
A small pre-dessert came in the form of a pesto ice-cream before our tiramisu arrived.
Tiramisu (1,700 yen) - I thought it was going to be a traditional (coffee) tiramisu but they threw me a curveball again.
This was actually made with Domori chocolate. There were crunchy ladyfingers and mascarpone cream in there but no coffee. And we all knew a tiramisu doesn't taste the same without coffee (partially my fault as chocolate was written on the menu but didn't say no coffee!).
The food quality was very very average and that would have been okay if it's not a restaurant inside one of the prestigious Aman Hotels. While I could live with average food, I certainly couldn't tolerate complacent service. Service tonight was very very disappointing. Don't get me wrong. The waiting staff here were friendly but hardly attentive. I have already mentioned that our starters, pasta and main all arrived at the same time but that's not all. Our server never showed herself after we placed our orders until the very last moment when she came over to ask if we wanted dessert. If she had come over a little earlier, she would probably have noticed that we had dirty and filthy plates that needed to be replaced right after our starters.
Like I said, it would have been completely okay if it's an average Italian restaurant in Tokyo. But Arva inside Aman Tokyo. Well, we have every right to expect a hell lot more.
Food Rating: 5.5/10
Price: ￥￥￥￥
Address: The Otemachi Tower, 1-5-6 Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku,Tokyo 100-0004 Japan
Closest Metro Station: Ōtemachi / Tokyo Station
Tel: +81 3-5224-3339
Website: www.aman.com/resorts/aman-tokyo/arva-restaurant
Opening Hours: 11:30am - 2:30pm, 5:30pm - 10:00pm daily
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