Chef Hideyuki Shibata trained in France before returning home to run La Clairière, a one-star restaurant in Shirokane, for the better part of a decade. In 2025 he opened mærge — and within months, the 2026 Michelin Guide handed it a star of its own. The ambition here is not subtle: this is a restaurant that means to reach three stars, and quickly. That intent is visible in nearly every detail of the experience.

Mærge sits on a quiet residential street in Aoyama, tucked away from the city’s noise. From the table, the view opens onto a small garden, quietly settling you into the meal before the first course even arrives.

Shibata’s training is unmistakably French, but the food itself is something closer to innovative Japanese cooking. The plates carry the ingredient-driven, terroir-conscious sensibility Michelin tends to reward. French technique as the frame, but with the rhythm and restraint of kaiseki running underneath. One dish captured this perfectly: rainbow trout flash-frozen with liquid nitrogen, paired with a potato mochi — a genuinely original composition that stayed with me. (I left it out of the photos below since my hand made an unwanted cameo.)

Throughout the meal, the kitchen brings out ingredients to show the table, and several dishes are finished tableside. It’s theater, and I suspect it’s theater with Michelin in mind — but it works, and it gives the meal a sense of occasion. The pacing is deliberate, even slow, so this isn’t a dinner to schedule between other plans; give it room to breathe. The wine service, for its part, was flawless — glasses were swapped out at exactly the right moments whenever a more intensely flavored course called for it.

The wine list itself has real depth, though the pricing doesn’t do you any favors. I went with a Chardonnay from Mie Ikeno, a small Japanese producer whose wines are sold in famously limited quantities at retail, often only through lottery. Bottles like this tend to trade for more than the restaurant price on the secondary market, which makes them worth seeking out on a list like mærge’s.

Reservation:
https://omakase.in/en/r/og654890

Booking difficulty: You can easily book on your schedule. Solo diners should contact the restaurant for reservation.

Cost: varies by season, ~40000JPY (~250USD) for Dinner.

Entrance

Main dish selection

Amuse bouche

Uni (sea urchin) with foam

Signature caviar sandwich

Torigai (Cockle clam)

Asparagus

Rainbow trout, smoked

Hata (Grouper) with crisp rice powder

Sherry soaked crab and soba noodle

Kuzumochi cleanser

Meat of my choice, quail

Fruit

Savarin

Assorted desert

Wine of the Day

Mie Ikeno Chardonnay 2023