A note on the words: an amuse-bouche is the one-bite plate a kitchen sends out before the meal proper. Beccafico is the Sicilian treatment of sardines, stuffed with herbs, pine nuts and raisins and baked. Tarte flambee is the very thin Alsatian flatbread of cream, onion and cured pork, often called a French pizza, and scamorza is a smoked Italian cheese. Hyuganatsu is a mild, faintly bitter Japanese citrus, and shamo is a Japanese game fowl bred for firm, deeply flavored meat. A lemon sour is shochu with lemon and soda, and a highball is whisky and soda. Ozmall is a Japanese restaurant-booking site much used for planning group dinners. Prices are as of this writing (August 2026).
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BATON Higashi-Ikebukuro on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Drinkers, thank you for waiting. It is Hangover Meshi time.
Tonight’s drinking was at BATON Higashi-Ikebukuro in Higashi-Ikebukuro. It was pouring outside, but the place connects straight to exit 6 of Higashi-Ikebukuro station, a minute on foot, so it hardly mattered. The idea here is choice meat, bistro cooking and wine — and, this being what I was really after, they serve the fluffy, molten soufflé omelet that began at Mont-Saint-Michel. The soufflé omelet place in Yurakucho closed down, so I had been wanting one.
The room is seriously stylish. Apparently it scores very high on Ozmall for girls’ nights out, ha.
As always, we went through the menu and picked what we felt like, à la carte.
Starting here.
Cowed by the stylish surroundings, I made the first drink a lemon sour. Lovely.
Let the very first plate baptize you in style.
Two cones blooming out of a wooden box lined with pebbles — that is the joke. Bite through the crimson cone and it snaps; the sweet richness of red pepper mousse meets the clean savor of consommé jelly, and the salt of the caviar pulls the whole thing tight at the end. A summer appetizer that begins and ends in one mouthful, and about as stylish as an amuse-bouche gets.
That feels like a small step back from all the stylishness.
Not ordinary fries but ‘crunch’ fries. A shredded coating that rattles as you bite into it, and then the salt and richness of anchovy butter seeping through behind. The oil seems better drained than usual, so they eat lighter and go down easily.
Two kinds of olive marinated Mediterranean-style. You taste the green ones’ young bitterness against the black ones’ ripe softness, with the sweet-sour semi-dried tomato and the scent of lemon chiming in between. Wine would surely suit it, though today it may have to be a highball.
The next small dish: octopus ceviche. Lime acidity runs cool over the springy octopus, and the green heat of jalapeño comes along a beat later. The dill sits lightly on top of it, and it is the sort of summer plate that makes white wine disappear faster.
The headliner among the fish: oven-baked sardines, beccafico style. We meant to have one each, only to be told there was one left. So we split it and shared a taste. It is a Sicilian classic, sardines stuffed with herbs, pine nuts and raisins and baked, and with the tail fin standing straight up it looks rather like a small bird resting its wings — as absurdly stylish as everything else here.
Put a knife in and it is herbs and butter that rise first. The savor of a fatty sardine layered with toasted pine nuts, and then, halfway through, the sweetness of raisin turns up out of nowhere. Dried grapes with an oily fish? You hesitate for a second, and then somehow they do not fight at all. Finishing it is a browned butter sauce made with hyuganatsu, a mild Japanese citrus. That faintly bitter acidity lifts the fat of the sardine clean away…
This is good. Really good.
The main: today’s three choice meats, grilled over charcoal. That night it was Shihoro beef sirloin from Tokachi, Kawamata shamo chicken, and Yamagata pork shoulder loin. It changes by the day, I think, and it takes a while on the grill, so this is the one to order first. The Shihoro beef drips juice from a rose-pink cut and eats like the very definition of good beef. The Kawamata shamo gives you a springy bite with the deep flavor of chicken welling up behind it, and the Yamagata pork finishes you off with the sweetness of its fat. All three carry a good toasty smell of charcoal. Salt is the recommendation for the meat, though wholegrain mustard is lovely on pork.
This was the whole point of the trip: BATON’s famous soufflé omelet.
The fluffy, molten omelet that began at Mont-Saint-Michel in France, served this time with a margherita-style tomato sauce. Slip a spoon in and the meringue-laden body sighs and sinks, and the sweet smell of egg comes up. In the mouth it is light as foam, and yet the richness of the egg is fully there. Over that go a sharp tomato sauce, the scent of fried basil and the salt of cheese — and yes, it really is a margherita. The three colors of the pizza rebuilt on top of an egg, and lovely to look at too.
It is quite large, but being a soufflé it is not heavy at all. Order this, absolutely.
Mains done, and on to the drinking.
A plate built around burrata from Hanabatake Ranch in Hokkaido, scattered with duck prosciutto and red fruit. Put a knife in and the cream spills out thick, and the acidity of the fruit, the salt of the duck and the toasted pistachio come at you in that order. That splattered pattern painted across the plate is very good indeed.
Last, the French pizza born in Alsace: tarte flambée. The paper-thin base is crisp and light, and the scent of smoked scamorza floats up over the sweet richness of onion béchamel. Piled on top are prosciutto, salad and raw mushrooms. Take a mouthful along with the cheese scattered like powder snow and it is less a pizza than a snack for drinking. And this is the half, so a full one must be quite a thing.
Honestly: stylish, top to bottom.
The room, of course, but the food above all is stylish and good. This is without question a place for a girls’ night out. Toward the back there are low sofa-and-table seats that read almost as semi-private rooms, so a slightly larger group would do very well here too. A serious, stylish menu and good things to drink. If you like wine, pairing it with wine is probably the best way to do this place.
To think there was somewhere this stylish in Ikebukuro…
Ikebukuro, I am sorry for underestimating you.
May you meet something good to eat today as well.
BATON Higashi-Ikebukuro (Bistro / Higashi-Ikebukuro Station, Higashi-Ikebukuro-yonchome Station, Toden-zoshigaya Station)
Tabelog dinner rating ★★★☆☆ 3.6
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
