Don’t be fooled by its fake Swiss chalet look from the outside, or Parisian bistrot look on the inside; Kunitoraya Villedo is as Japanese as they come. Well, Japanese tapas actually. With noodles. Come have a taste…

If you go to the area of Paris around the rue Saint Anne, you’ll find an ill-defined parcel between the avenue de l’Opéra, Bourse and Palais Royal full of Japanese restaurants, so many that’s it’s difficult to tell the difference between the great places and the tourist traps.

After many years of searching, we finally found Kunitoraya (their first Parisian restaurant) on the rue Saint-Anne itself (here), and despite the inevitable queues for their amazing udon dishes, it became one of biggest favourites in the area. However, seats were scarce, and it was very much a pack’em in, whack’em out style restaurant. Anyone wanting to take their time, or taste something a little more refined, would have to go elsewhere. Until now.

About a year ago, Kunitoraya opened a new restaurant just down the road on rue Villedo, called Kunitoraya 2 or Kunitoraya Villedo, depending on who you ask, and we thought we give it a go. Having heard nothing about it at all, we weren’t sure what to expect, apart from a posher version of the Udon restaurant.

That’s not quite what we found.

It would seem that the new owners have left much of the previous décor. From the street, it looks – to be charitable – old school. Once inside, it’s a sea of mirrors, ostensibly to hide the fact that it’s pretty damn tiny. Only the semi-open kitchen at the back lends a more modern feeling to the room.The crowd seems to be part monied Japanese, part posh French, and it’s easy to see why; as soon as the menus arrived, we realised that the cheap-as-chips prices of Kunitoraya 1 were nowhere to be seen. Instead, we were presented with a list of Japanese tapas dishes that we imagined to be as tiny as they were expensive.

Also, for a restaurant charging these sorts of prices (up to 70 euros for a tasting selection!), the menu itself was pretty insalubrious, covered with stains, dog-eared and badly printed. After handling it, we almost felt like washing our hands.However, we did notice that the table next to us had been given different menus, and thank goodness we saw; they had the lunchtime menus for udon noodle dishes, and we have only the top-price tapas menu for the evening, despite the fact that you can still order udon for dinner.We weren’t very happy at having been given just the list of expensive dishes, but the beers we quickly ordered and the first free tapas helped calm us down…Of course, faced with the new concept of Japanese tapas, we just had to try some, so we worked out a selection including:

– cucumber and wakame salade with shredded crab,
– botargo and radish (which turned out to be exactly that, nothing more),
– tuna with grated yam and jellied TOSA vinegar

and an intriguing structure that we had spied at the next table (the name of which escapes me). These tiny dishes are made to be savoured slowly, which we diligently did, and reaction varied from “it’s like a party in my mouth” to “meh”. “Slowly” must very much the byword of the evening, with dishes served separately as soon as they were readied by the kitchen, which was not especially quickly. Above all, one took almost a full hour to arrive! I know they’re made with care, but that’s just ridiculous.Although we’d been a little greedy with the tapas, we had to go continue with noodles, right? Service was quicker, and we were reassured that the Kunitoraya touch was as present here as in their other restaurant. Udons can be eaten cold or hot (we had a mix of both), and look great. Even the tempura was beautifully presented with a side-dish of chopped herbs and a separate serving of noodles.By the time we’d downed all that (and these soup-style dishes are extremely filling), there was barely room for dessert, normally something that we make an extra effort to try for you! This time though, an excess of teeny tapas and big bowls of noodles had got the better of us.

Defeated, we decided to try just one dessert, the tofu pannacotta with grilled tea. Sounds good, doesn’t it?! Well it was. Even on a full stomach, we appreciated its subtle taste and coolness, as beautifully presented as all the previous dishes.So what’s our lasting impression of Kunitoraya Villedo? Well, if you want an original, finely-crafted, delicately prepared, exquisitely presented Japanese meal, and you have a decent budget, then it’s a great choice. Just make sure you have plenty of time ahead of you; even with five chefs, service can be frustratingly slow.

The restaurant is obviously catering more for the Palais Royal / Opera crowd (rather than the younger crowd aroyund rue Saint-Anne), and their take on tapas is definitely worth trying if your palate is fine as your wallet is thick. However, if you prefer Udon dishes, we think you’d be as well off at the original, dingier Kunitoraya, literally just down the road. It’s delicious and really not expensive.

Kunitoraya Villedo (here) is closed on Mondays, open for lunch form Tuesday – Sunday and open for dinner from Tuesday – Saturday

Tel: +33 (0)1 47 03 07 74

Official site: ici

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