A note on the words: kotake is a dark, intensely fragrant wild Japanese mushroom, usually dried and used in small amounts for its scent rather than its bulk. Tajarin is a thin, egg-rich ribbon pasta from Piedmont in northern Italy. Madai is Japanese red sea bream. Rillettes is a spreadable potted meat. A specialite is the dish a kitchen considers its signature. Yatsugatake is a mountain range in central Japan, and Nagasaki is a prefecture in the far southwest.
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Filemone on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Right, this is Hangover Meshi. This time it is deep in Akasaka — if you ask whether Akasaka or Nogizaka is closer, it is about halfway between the two, I would say. An Italian place called Filemone. I had actually known about it since it opened, but I could never quite get there. I knew they had started serving mornings, too, but going in the morning never lined up either. It had been on my mind the whole time, so this time I finally went. Should I reserve, I wondered — but through Tabelog it looked like only the pricier courses could be booked, so I just charged in more or less at opening time! There was one other party in, but I got a seat with no trouble. ^^
The place is not that big — six tables or so, maybe?
There is plenty of space between each of them, so it feels roomy and relaxed.
Thanks to the big pane of glass at the front, you get both a sense of openness and good light inside, which feels great!
Lunch Course A 3500 yen
Lunch Course B 5500 yen
Lunch Course C 6500 yen
Lunch comes in three versions: three dishes with A, six with B, and six including the specialite with C.
It is lunch, so I do not need to eat that much, I figured — and picked Lunch Course A.
With Lunch Course A you choose one pasta and pick your main from fish or meat.
There are quite a few pastas: spaghetti in tomato sauce and spaghetti carbonara come with no extra charge, and for a surcharge you can have, say, tagliatelle made with chestnut flour in a wagyu ragu for +300 yen.
Among them, the one that struck me as pricey but delicious-looking was
the kotake tajarin, cappuccino-style with mushroom. It is +1500 yen, but you do not get many chances to eat kotake.
So I stretched a little and chose this one!
A lunchtime beer!
Sadly I cannot drink at midday, so water it was for me.
And the moment I ate this assortment of appetizers, I felt how good this place is!
Spring-water trout from Yatsugatake. A trout raised in very clean water.
A quiche of new-crop onion and aged potato. This one is outstandingly good.
Whether it is the aged potato doing the work or not, the quiche is very soft with a strong savor.
Somehow I had this image of quiche as a bit stodgy, but not at all! It was a seriously delicious quiche.
This is impressive.
At the back, ham and a pork belly rillettes on bread. That rillettes is also seriously good — the kind of flavor that makes you want wine.
Overall the impression is of food made with real care, completely unlike what comes out of your average Italian course!
Mushroom whipped to something softer than a mousse sits on top of a thin-stranded pasta.
Around it, kotake and cheese are scattered. From the moment it arrives the mushroom aroma is lovely, and one bite in: seriously good!! The foam has the mushroom flavor concentrated to an extraordinary degree, and the fine scent of kotake floats up through your nose.
It is a very strongly scented mushroom. The pasta has real bite and stands up firmly. The sauteed kotake scattered over it gives off an even stronger, more forceful aroma — this is delicious. Perhaps this pasta was chosen because it can hold its own against that. Seriously good.
This one is the carbonara. I got a bite, and it is very rich — this carbonara is delicious too!!!
Yuko madai, apparently, is sea bream raised on feed mixed with a citrus from Nagasaki called yuko.
It is sauteed to an excellent point, leaving the flesh plump. It flakes apart softly and tastes wonderful. Laid underneath is couscous.
Same goes for the scallop at the back — both suit the loose sauce, which is packed with seafood savor, perfectly.
I thought it might be something like a fricassee, but when I got a bite the meat just fell apart.
How do you get it that tender? And the flavor — the mushrooms and the chicken go together beautifully.
Wow! Everything is delicious.
Huh? This for 3500 yen, seriously? That was the level of the place — really delicious!
If it is this good, I wish I had gone for the 5500-yen-or-up course and made it all the way to dessert. Next time, a dinner course with wine pairings alongside the food would be an idea too! To think somewhere this good was here and I had not been — what a loss! It was delicious enough that I am thinking of going again soon, so this is a place I recommend very much.
Filemone (Italian / Nogizaka Station, Akasaka Station, Aoyama-itchome Station)
Tabelog lunch rating ★★★☆☆ 3.8
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
