For Chase’s belated birthday dinner, we decided to indulge a bit and get reservations for sushi at a restaurant that has the privilege of carrying a Michelin star or two. Little did we know, getting those reservations take some planning and string pulling. Read on to see how we managed to do it.To dine at a restaurant with a Michelin star rating was on our bucket list. We decided that Tokyo would be the place to do it because 1: Tokyo, outranking all other cities in the world, has the most Michelin starred restaurants, so we’d have options and 2: many Michelin starred restaurants are Japanese or French cuisine. It made the most sense to enjoy excellently prepared sushi in the country that originated it. We quickly found out, however, that Japanese culture is very selective and their cuisine is no exception. After reading a few articles, we learned that three starred Michelin restaurants are exclusive to Japanese. If you aren’t Japanese or at the least, with someone who is, you will not be seated. Knowing that, the highest rating we could get would be a two starred restaurant. But there was another hiccup, most Michelin ranked restaurants only take reservations from concierge. ...we were staying in an Airbnb, sans the hotel concierge. Luckily, there are companies that exist for this reason (i.e. Pocket Concierge) but their fees are high! For a second, we considered asking our Japanese host to call and book the reservations but then we remembered our Chase Visa credit card. We invested in the Chase Sapphire Reserve card back in 2017 and I was pretty sure we had access to their 24 hour concierge service. So we called and they were eager to help! Chase, Mr. WanderBaums, had found a Michelin two-star restaurant called Umi. Our Chase concierge (I know, confusing) told us Umi takes reservations exactly a month out so they would try then. They also told us to be prepared for a rejection. We knew it was a possibility but Chase, the husband, had high hopes! All we could do was wait and see. Exactly a month before our planned evening at Umi, Chase got a call from Chase... I’m almost done with this part of the story, I promise. Anyway, we had gotten the reservations! We were both so excited and super grateful for our Visa card that sealed the deal for us. Fun Fact, the Visa concierge is not exclusive to Sapphire cardholders, you just have to have a Visa Infinite card to gain access. There are a few other premium cards that come with this perk, just FYI. The morning leading up to dinner was spent in Ginza seeing Kabuki theater. It was one of the calmest days of the whole trip. After a bit of wandering, we made our way over to Umi for our 8:30pm reservations. There were no menus, it was all omakase dining. Chef Nakamura greeted us with a warm smile and a soft “konnichiwa”. The wait staff took our coats, placed them in the wardrobe, and showed us to our table. Other than our group, there were three couples and a family of three, totaling 12 people dining in the restaurant. After we settled in, we were asked what we wanted to drink and when we said sake, Chef Nakamura asked if he could do a sake pairing for us. We said, “yes!” And that was our first and final choice during the two hour dinner. The food was incredible. There really isn’t an accurate adjective to describe how amazing every bite was. We had 30 courses including squid, eel, sea-urchin, amberjack, octopus, the brightest red tuna I’ve ever seen, Japanese horse mackerel, scorpion fish, and about 20 other amazing pieces of fish. After the final course, the traditional tamago, our master chef went one by one asking every person if we were full. We all were and then we waited for him to calculate what we owed for the evening. With some research and planning ahead, we were able to partake in a truly wonderful experience at Umi. Getting reservations to a prestigious restaurant of any kind is hard but when you're on vacation and can't plan to try again next month just means you've got to be on top of it. Look at all your options, make sure you get your information correct the first time and use any additional help you can. You might just find yourself pulled up to a sushi counter in Tokyo, eating the best meal of your life!
Until Next Time, C + D
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