OK, it just so happened that I had to take some people to dinner this evening and, at the last minute, decided to go to Matsumoto. There were four of us.
First off, Cathy's contact information is correct as regards the phone number, so don't be discouraged when you call and get what appears to be a home telephone answering machine. You will be asked whether you have any dietary or price restrictions, and informed that, because Matsumoto serves a very traditional Kaiseki menu, a good sake is recommended.
Given my time restraints and lack of sake, my party arrived with good bone-dry rose champagne, some beer and a bottle of scotch whisky. It worked.
The room is a very serene, pleasant place -- open and spacious by the standards of such restaurants, in my limited experience. The decor and furnishings are fine, particularly the bathrooms, and especially in comparison to other west Lawrence Avenue salons. A low sushi bar with six or eight seats is at the rear end of the room, with several western style tables spread around at comfortable intervals. Plums and purples dominate.
A few clumsy signs (laminated health code postings, a bathroom sign that could be from Red Lobster) and the servers' day-glow yellow and orange aprons with Japanese script and the word "Welcome" jump out from an otherwise sophisticated room design in a way that is comfortingly Japanese.
The Hostess and the Chef dominate the meal, and that is a good thing. The Hostess is engaging and effervescent; she has lots of questions and explanations, but she also has some sort of imbedded timer that forces her to graciously excuse herself before too long. The Chef watches, grumbles, and wields the knife behind the bar when fish is in play.
The dining room was empty, but a semi-private room in back was filled with happy, smoking Japanese businessmen, hosted by a ruddy 30's executive with a blue blazer and a rep tie. Several Chicago detectives walked out with food and thanked the Hostess like they meant it.
On to the meal. I have pictures, but they were taken with a phone. Poor quality, but I'd be happy to e-mail specific images to those who might be interested.
(1) A large martini glass filled with gazpacho-like, chilled and foamy tomato broth. Floating in the tomato was a very slowly-poached chicken egg, whose white also was aerated into a froth. I liked it.
(2) An essay in what I tasted to be extremely fancy vinegar. A sherry glass contained sea urchin roe, a quail egg, vinegar and some temperate liquid, possibly miso broth. A shot glass contained delicate seaweed topped with salmon roe, all of it floating in a similar, but different sauce centered on the vinegar. A small plate contained poached salmon glazed in a sauce keyed to the vinegar. To be honest, the salmon was a bit over-cooked. The urchin "shooter" was tremendous. The seaweed was pretty good. On the whole, I though this was a great plate.
(3) Sashimi. A generous portion of squid, fatty tuna, salmon, snapper, scallop, and more tuna. Stacked into a tower, covered with good caviar and topped with a bit of gold flake. Simple enough, and the best sashimi I have had in Chicago. Would have traded my gold for fresh wasabi, but that's a minor point. This was the highlight of an otherwise great meal.
(4) Soup of enoki mushrooms, white miso and firm white fish (escolar?). I'm guessing on the miso and fish, but I think I'm close. Served in a tiny earthenware tea kettle, this soup was very elegant and flavorful. I opened the pot and ate the fish and mushrooms, whether I was supposed to or not.
(5) Long braised pork belly. This was served in a bowl with a bit of the drippings and garnished with asparagus spears. The dish made short ribs out of bacon, long-cooking the belly in sweet soy sauce until it was spoon-tender and chocolate-colored. Great comfort food.
(6) Tempura. Large shrimp, green vegetables, and shiso leaves. Very good.
(7) "Fish cake mochi" Fish cakes covered with sticky rice, sitting atop an omelette and covered in a sauce of sea urchin roe, tiny mushrooms and egg and/or cornstarch. This was at once the most complicated and most subtle of the dishes served. The Anglo, Cuban, and Indian-Mauritanian Americans at the table gave it mixed reviews. I liked it fine, but in my estimation this dish suffered from being a comparatively bland, stick-to-your-ribs plate at the end of a meal punctuated by brilliant flavors.
(8) Dessert: a long and narrow dish filled with chilled watermelon gelee containing huge, peeled muscat grapes and sweetened black beans. Visually exciting and the best dessert I've had in a Japanese restaurant.
(9) Green tea.
We followed this with a few shots of good Scotch and chatted with Chiyomo for a little while. When the Tokyo suits left, they seemed to be well-pleased with the chef.
Chiyomo is bemused that the place has already received some attention from non-Japanese diners. She is humble about her restaurant and does not seem to have considered the non-Japanese audience too much previously. What she may or may not realize is that Chicago diners are already prepared for this kind of a meal.
All of the sudden, Chicago is an especially interesting place to eat out again, after a significant lull among higher-end places (at least in my experience). I'd say Matsumoto is a happy coincidence, but it fits right in.
After dinner, there's fun in every direction. Shishas to the south, Hourglass to the east, and other pursuits for the Japanese wage earner to the west. (Not to mention the very interesting Polish bottle club across the street...)
This place is for real. As good as the best Japanese meal I've had in Chicago, and on par with all but the top "tasting menu" places -- after only a couple of weeks -- in terms of food. Service is not trying to do the same thing, though it is quite good.
PS, the chef used to work at Katsu and spent his longest tenure at a Japanese place in Schaumberg. I didn't catch the name. The owners are good friends with the folks from Heat.
The bill worked out to about a hundred bucks per person, with tip but but not including BYOB liquor (no corkage fee at this point and beverage service was excellent).
Peace.