If you live in Tokyo and love cheese as much as I do, life can get hard sometimes. Tokyo’s cheese scene is actually thriving, but stepping up from the plastic-like cheese you find in supermarkets isn’t cheap. The good news is that Fromatique in Kagurazaka is a great spot to alleviate your cheese cravings without breaking the bank. This French restaurant offers affordable raclette and fondue, my two favorite cheese-loaded French dishes.
The restaurant is located a few meters away from Kagurazaka’s main street. What I love about it is the outside terrace where you can enjoy warm summer days while eating cheese!
Fromatique has several courses. Their standard course ‘Fromatique’ is a great way to get acquainted with the restaurant’s offering and it won’t leave you hungry. Count between 2,700 and 3,700 yen for a all-you-can-eat course depending on the type of cheese you choose.
The ‘Fromatique’ course starts with a cheese fondue, and you can ask for a free refill. You can choose between two types of fondue: the classic Swiss, or non-alcohol cheese. We went with the first option and I was really satisfied with the first batch, but the refill was drowned in white wine, making it really difficult to enjoy.
For the dips, you get a cold meat platter as well as all-you-can-eat bread and vegetables. I would have been happy with just bread, but veggies surely don’t hurt.
Last but not least, the course also comes with a beautiful half raclette wheel (or more depending on how many you are). You can choose between French, Japanese and Swiss cheese. Even though I completely sucked at scraping the raclette, it was definitely the highlight of the meal. We had 6 big eaters in our party and we did not even come close to finish one of the two half wheels that came with our course!
Overall
If you like raclette and fondue, Fromatique is the best option in town in terms of quality, quantity and value for money. Even though they messed up a bit with the fondue refill, I think it was an isolated incident so I wouldn’t let that stop me from going back.
The service was standard; not nice but not bad. There was only one waitress the evening we went, so she may have felt overwhelmed. It lacked that nice and welcoming atmosphere that I would have liked to find in this type of establishment, but all in all, it was a very satisfying meal.
All the prices in this article are excluding taxes and service charge.
Fromatique
Opening hours:
Open from everyday from 11:30 to 15:00 for lunch and from 17:00 to 20:00 for dinner (may be subject to change due to the Coronavirus)
Website (Japanese only): click here
Address: 2-chome-10-23, Kagurazaka, Shinjuku City, 162-0825 Tokyo
Telephone: 03-3267-1717
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