Pierre Gagnaire
© AFP/File Toru YamanakaTOKYO (AFP) - The Michelin three-star chef's "Pierre Gagnaire a Tokyo" -- his first restaurant outside Europe -- occupies two floors of a glitzy glass building in the chic Aoyama district.
"All the ingredients are there to ensure quality," said Gagnaire, who is based in Paris but plans to visit Japan every three months.
"My objective is that the restaurant becomes part of Tokyo life and one of the beautiful places where people want to come to eat."
The 55-year-old has visited Japan often but was slower to open a restaurant here than fellow French star chefs Joel Robuchon and Alain Ducasse in Tokyo and Michel Bras in Hokkaido, northern Japan.
"Even if I am not influenced by Japanese cuisine, what fascinates me about Japan is the elegance which one finds in the dishes," he said.
"I feel very close to Japan. My aim is to have elegant dishes -- that's my link with Japan, with Japanese cuisine."
The interior of the eatery, adorned with mosaics, was designed by Christian Ghion, another French aficionado of Japan.
The restaurant seats 82 diners in the main dining area and a further 40 on the terrace. It is Gagnaire's second outside France. "Sketch" opened in London in 2002.
The lunch menu is priced at 7,350 yen (62 dollars) and the two dinner menus at 17,450 and 26,880 yen.
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