It is always a pleasure to discover a great new restaurant ¡ª and even more so when ¡°new¡± means a lot more than just ¡°recently opened.¡± L¡¯As is a small place with a young crew and a location that is easy to overlook. But since opening in early February in the backstreets of Minami-Aoyama, it¡¯s been generating the kind of enthusiastic word-of-mouth buzz that bigger names in flashier areas would give their iPads for.
Like its short, punchy name ¡ª pronounced ¡°laas,¡± it¡¯s French for ¡°ace¡± ¡ª L¡¯As keeps things simple and uncluttered. What catches the eye is not what¡¯s there so much as what has been pared away.
Tokyo has plenty of restaurants with a spare, clean-cut, Scandinavian-modern look and comfortable lightwood furniture. But few go so far as to banish all cutlery from sight. The only objects on your tabletop are a dark rectangular block ¡ª this is for your bread ¡ª and your linen napkin. Everything you need is in a drawer in the table cleverly concealed by your right hand.
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