Florilège

Florilège is a French tasting-menu restaurant in Tokyo, on the second floor of Garden Plaza D at Azabudai Hills in Toranomon. Its name is the French word for an anthology.

Hiroyasu Kawate, who grew up in Tokyo in a family of cooks, trained at Le Bourguignon in Nishi-Azabu and at Jardin des Sens in Montpellier, then worked at Quintessence in Shirokanedai under Shuzo Kishida. He opened Florilège in Minami-Aoyama in 2009 and moved it to Jingumae a few years later. That second site closed in July, and the restaurant reopened at Azabudai Hills that September as what the chef calls its third chapter.

The new room is built around a single communal table 13 m (43 ft) long, in the manner of a French table d'hôte, so the cooks and the people eating face each other across one surface. At the Jingumae site an open kitchen had a plating station that also held large ikebana flower arrangements. Kawate cooks with Japanese produce in a French frame, and his courses put everyday vegetables first while cutting back on meat, fish and dairy. Dish names give little away: striped shrimp, pumpkin and one called To Balance. For special occasions the kitchen makes a beetroot flower, a candied rose assembled from thin petals of beet.

Asia's 50 Best Restaurants named Florilège its One to Watch, and two years later the restaurant climbed close to the top of that list. The Michelin Guide gave it two stars in 2018 and later added a Green Star for its sustainable approach. Kawate also received the Inedit Damm Chefs' Choice Award from the same organization, voted by fellow chefs of the region, and he has cooked at food conferences abroad, including events in Turkey.