Oreno French & Italian Aoyama
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There are certain gourmet foods that are seen as the exclusive domain of the rich. Most folks can enjoy a meal at a nice restaurant now and then, but the fanciest places are so expensive that for most people, only a truly special occasion can warrant spending that type of money. There are, of course, cheap versions of things like pâté, but a really good pâté is different, and we all pretend to know it.
Think caviar, foie gras, something called let-tuce - these ingredients are so fancy that you may only try them once a year, once every five years, a couple times in your life. So when we heard that there was a restaurant in Tokyo serving steak topped with foie gras, and that it was actuallly cheap, we knew we had to check this place out.
Oreno French & Italian - Aoyama location
The Oreno brand gained notoriety for standing restaurants, quick eats and street food at a low price point. They’ve expanded into all sorts of cuisines, including their French & Italian brand, which recently opened up a shop in Aoyama, not far from Omotesando, where Eriko works.
The restaurant was a bit difficult to find: it’s in a building that also contains some other restaurants, a cryotherapy place, a pillow store, and a Momotaro Jeans, but Oreno has a different entrance from all of these, so you actually have to go outside and down the block to go in. We went there for dinner on White Day, so the place was packed, and we were glad we had a reservation. Along with the tables, there is a long bar you can opt to sit at, which is what we did because it made it easier to snap our many, many photos.
The menu, which is available to view online, is pretty extensive. It’s got pizza, steak tartare with sea urchin and caviar, lobster, and even fresh-squeezed Mont Blanc, which we unfortunately didn’t get because we ate so much food we didn’t need dessert. We saw some people eating pizza, and it looked pretty good. There were some other things we saw, however, that you should avoid.
The restaurant has an open kitchen, so you can see the guys making your food. It’s a big kitchen, but there were surprisingly few people working for such a busy night. We could see them hard at work on various dishes, but could also see a guy who opened up a frozen bag of shellfish and dumped it into a pan. Maybe don’t go for the mussels.
We were informed that meat dishes, such as the steak Rossini topped with foie gras, take 30-40 minutes to prepare, which settled our debate over whether to do an appetizer or dessert. It’s surprising that such small steaks take so long, but that’s how they do it here, so we went with it.
Drinks and amuse-bouche at Oreno
We don’t drink alcohol, so we always look for what juices are available on a restaurant menu. Incredibly, Oreno offered a sparkling grape juice option to supplement their wine list. Of course we ordered it (it was White Day, after all). The juicemelier filled our glasses to the top to make for better photos. It was good stuff, but we also had to ask for water because I wasn’t going to be paying for a second glass of fancy grape juice.
We received an amuse-bouche in the form of some sort of sweet bread. It was good. Simple, yet effective because it was free (unless you count the table charge). While we waited for our first course, a pianist came out and played the grand piano that sat in front of our counter. This could be an annoying addition to a restaurant, but it was cool because she played almost exclusively songs from old Disney movie soundtracks. We enjoyed it. But we also had to wonder: with the food so cheap, how are they also paying this pianist? Seems like that would be a good place to save money.
I decided to jog to the bathroom before the food came. I asked at the front, and was informed that like most department-store restaurants in Japan, there was no bathroom in this place. Not unusual for a restaurant in a big building, but strange for an upscale joint like this, especially considering it was barely connected to the building. I had to take an elevator up to the second floor, walk past Momotaro Jeans and the cryotherapy place to the end of the hall, traversing the entire now-empty vertical mall to reach the restaurant bathroom. Mark against Oreno on that one. Thankfully, I made it back before Eriko ate all the food.
Caprese of burrata cheese, raw ham and seasonal fruit, and bread with truffle butter
Our first course was a salad with burrata and ham. The ham was nothing special, okay-tasting but not especially Italian. I avoided the cheese, but Eriko said it could have used more balsamic vinegar. The strawberries were just okay, but the tomatoes were quite good. All in all, it was probably worth the 12 bucks we paid for it.
We also got bread with truffle butter. They seemed surprised we only wanted one piece of bread each, but they were plenty big. The truffle butter was only 110 yen ($0.73), an amazing price for something so delicious, especially with the portion they gave us. The bread was satisfactory and the truffle butter also tasted good on the amuse-bouche bread. A definite winner there.
By now, the pianist had stopped playing, and after she was done, they turned on the house lights. Soon most diners were gone, even though it was only like 8:30. This place cleared out early on White Day, for some reason.
Pork saltimbocca at Oreno French & Italian
Saltimbocca is a traditional Italian dish made with veal. We had it in Rome and it was delicious. When we saw it on this menu, even though it was made with pork (a slight variation), we knew we had to try it. The potatoes and whatnot were okay, but what really wowed us were the two HUGE pieces of meat. For 2,178 yen ($14.50), they could have gotten away with giving us only one slice that size, but they hooked us up.
The sauce was rich and plentiful - if not super fancy, it was pretty tasty and went well with the meat. The best part was the herbs stuffed underneath the skin, so you got the rich sauce, light herbs, and then juicy meat all at once. I would not say that this reminded me of the Roman saltimbocca in any way, but it was quite good considering the price point. And if you’ve never had saltimbocca because the veal scares you off, this is a decent pork version. We recommend.
Steak Rossini and foie gras at Oreno
For our final course, we went with the dish that had attracted us to this place, the beef tenderloin “ROSSINI” style & sauteed foie gras with truffle sauce. We went with the 150 gram version instead of the 300 gram version, and were glad we did because this thing was plenty big.
We should probably talk a second about the ethics of foie gras. It’s made in a pretty gross way, and a lot of people don’t want to eat it because of that. I totally understand. We eat vegan at home, only eating meat when we go out. Eriko claims this has made her dislike meat in general, and says this is why she tapped out after only one bite of the steak & foie gras. I think it was because she filled up on burrata. Regardless, I ate most of this thing because of my hatred for geese.
Anyway, if you don’t want to try foie gras, that’s understandable. Personally, I think eating it once a year is not that big of a deal, so I went with it this time. It’s the same logic I use for shark fin soup. Don’t @ me I’m an ally.
We were not asked how we wanted the steak cooked, and it came out pink and rare. I wouldn’t have minded another 30 seconds or so of cooking. It sat on top of mashed potatoes and a sauce that looked like it might be peppery but was in fact quite sweet - a little too sweet on its own, almost airplane-food level.
But when the sauce was combined with the mashed potatoes, steak, and foie gras, something magical happened. It all worked together, like a poster in an elementary school classroom. These disparate elements created a taste unlike any I’d had before.
We’ve had foie gras at classier restaurants than this, but it didn’t combine with the other elements there as well as it did here. A meh-quality steak, a pre-made sauce, mashed potatoes, and a slab of one of the most questionable things you can eat somehow came together to create an incredible flavor.
The price? 3,278 yen ($21.79). It wasn’t the best steak I’ve ever had, or the best foie gras I’ve ever had. But was it the best $20 steak and foie gras I’ve ever had? Yes. It is the only steak and foie gras I’ll probably ever get for $20, and it lived up to that.
Verdict: is Oreno French & Italian any good?
We ultimately paid 10,660 yen ($70.85) for our meal. That’s a great value for what we got. It should be noted that different Oreno restaurants have different menus and different prices, so look them up before you go.
It’s important to talk about price while evaluating this place. This isn’t the fanciest restaurant in Tokyo, so you shouldn’t expect the same quality of food. This is a mid-range restaurant, and the food tastes really good for the price. But when would one want to eat here? Couldn’t you just save up and eat at a super-fancy restaurant sometime?
For us, the answer is yes. The ambiance at this place was fine, but we’d probably rather spend the same amount at Los Tacos Azules or someplace more casual that has slightly better food at smaller portions, and wait until we can go to a mega-fancy restaurant on special occasions.
The reason to go here is not the food, which is fine, or the price, which is cheap but not bargain-basement cheap. It’s the rare combination of gourmet foods at a cheap price point. If you’ve never had foie gras, caviar, or truffles, this is a way to try them inexpensively. I’d never seen that before, and it was enough of a gimmick to get us in the door. It probably won’t bring us back given how many choices Tokyo offers, but that’s true of many quality restaurants.
I would recommend Oreno to those who’ve never had these dishes before, because anywhere else in Tokyo that serves them is going to be really expensive, and you don’t even know if you like these things yet. And if you’re young and taking someone new out on a date, this is a way to show them how sophisticated you are without breaking the bank, because you don’t even know if you like them yet.
This may not sound like a strong recommendation, but keep in mind that we are 40 and have traveled, so these foods weren’t new to us. But we had a great time without spending much, meaning we can save our money for our next big trip to Europe (coming soon). We’re glad we went, and if you go to Oreno Aoyama, you’ll probably be glad you did, too.
Where to find Oreno French & Italian in Tokyo
Address: 〒107-0061 Tokyo, Minato City, Kita-Aoyama, 3 Chome−11−7 AOビル １階
Phone: 03-6450-5911
Hours: Mon-Sat 11:30am–3pm, 5pm-11pm; Sun 11:30am-11pm.
Website: oreno.co.jp
There are four different locations of Oreno French & Italian in Tokyo, as well as other eateries in the Oreno family. We went to the Aoyama one, but if you want to try another, make sure to check out the menu beforehand so you can learn the prices and get a good deal on your foie gras. Especially if your parents were killed on their way to see the movie Geese with John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John.
