La Cime - Osaka
La Cime is a 2 Michelin starred restaurant in Osaka. At the time of writing, it is ranked as the 44th best restaurant in the world, a list which I have been to 43 of.
Unfortunately, you would struggle to convince me that La Cime is the 44th best restaurant in Osaka.
Let’s lead with the decor. The venue is painted completely black, and the dining room is made up of black tablecloths etc. There is no additional decor so you feel like you’re in a 14-year-old goth's idea of a fine dining restaurant.
Service is fine, but extraordinarily scripted. Every time I have a question about the food, my waiter (and there is only one waiter) just goes back to the start of how he introduced the dish, and he simply does not know the answer to anything other than that, which is frustrating at best.
And so the food. Let’s get one thing clear - the food at La Cime looks stunning. It’s artistic, it’s plated well, there’s good use of colour and whimsy. Unfortunately it ranges from bland to downright unpleasant. Most dishes taste of very little. The piece of meat on the lamb main isn’t seasoned whatsoever. A scallop crepe has a beautiful texture but a sauce accompanies it that simply tastes of melted butter. On the worse side, bread is served, funnily enough, without butter, which is a bizarre choice. One of the appetisers resembles a piece of grass and tastes exactly like it too.
There is one glimmer of hope - there is a small bowl of nuts and red wine jelly in the dessert that is phenomenal - the taste of it could sit in any three star restaurant.
But perhaps my most damning indictment, then, of La Cime is that it’s been ten days since I went and I cannot remember anything else about any of the pictures of this food. This was a boozeless lunch. My wits were truly about me. Baffled by this one’s popularity, gang.