Moliere - Sapporo
Cozy inside, snowy outside
Rating: 17/20
Where: Sapporo, Japan
When: Dinner for 2 on 9 February 2025
Cost per Person: Tasting menu 23000 JPY, Wine pairing 6400-9500 JPY
Accolades: Formerly 3 Michelin Stars (2012, 2017), Tabelog Bronze Award (2025)
Why: French cuisine with local Hokkaido ingredients
“Moliere” is a French restaurant in Sapporo on Japan's northern island of Hokkaido. While there is no Michelin Guide for this part of Japan at the moment, two one-off editions were published in 2012 and 2017. And there was only one restaurant that received three stars both times: Moliere. So when we found ourselves in the city for its annual snow festival, we were excited to try the restaurant.
Moliere has been around for about forty years. Located on the lower floor of an apartment building, it has an old-school, slightly dated look, and feels more French than Japanese. There were around six tables with white tablecloths, a relatively low ceiling, and formally dressed waiters. During our visit, snow was falling heavily outside, which lent the dining room a cozy atmosphere.
For our dinner, there was a single tasting menu that could be adapted to dietary restrictions. Unusually, there was no printed menu, and instead, the entire menu was recited to us after we were seated. Wine pairings consisting of 4-6 glasses were available as well. I went with the five glass option, all matched to the savory courses. I liked the poured wines quite a lot, both with the food and without. Even a local white wine from Hokkaido was quite good. Definitely worth a try.
Our dinner started with a small onion tarte. It had a nicely mealy and crunchy shell, and a (relatively) rustic filling with lots of onions and a tiny bit of bacon. Reminiscent of what one might get served in Alsace 17.
Next, a shiitake mushroom soup topped with a vegetable foam. Served hot, this was a creamy delight full of strong mushroom flavor - although it tasted less of shiitakes than of generic mushrooms 18.
Three pieces of tempura smelt (wakasagi) were served with a deep-fried sprig of parsley. The breading was not too thick, but the fish flavor was light - not the most remarkable tempura. What was surprisingly delicious though, was the fried parsley. Yes, it was a bit oily and very salty, but also very, very flavorful 16.
A Hokkaido oyster was served with a slice of sudachi. This was a complimentary addition to the menu after we had confirmed that we were ok with oysters. It was a very large oyster, with a somewhat watery consistency and only an aftertaste of oyster 16.
A “vegetable salad” was actually a warm collection of 24 kinds of vegetables that had many different flavors, textures and even preparation methods - mostly sautéed in butter, but also pickled. They came with several little dabs of sauce: sesame, an ume plum sauce, beets, lemon jam, and a spinach sauce, all meant to be mixed with the vegetables before eating. The buttery sauce on the veggies was lovely and herbal, the tomato in particular was bursting with flavor. A very nice dish, and more “casual” than the 80+ ingredients salads seen at other three-starred restaurants 17.
Next, we were served a warm, but unremarkable slice of baguette. It felt like a crisped up supermarket baguette, with a very crunchy crust, but not much flavor. The unsalted butter on the side was also nothing to write home about 12.
A surf clam (hokkigai) was served in its shell on top of a salad dressed with a vinegar-horseradish sauce. Essentially, this dish was simply a salad with a few pieces of clam in it. The clam was tender but still had a bit of a bite to it - nice. I couldn't taste any horseradish, but there was plenty of yuzu in the dressing 16.
An abalone had been colored black using squid ink and came with a squid ink sauce, an abalone liver sauce and a squid ink risotto. The fresh abalone was served hot, with a medium bite. A very nice texture, but it didn't have much taste by itself. The risotto was somewhat overcooked (not al dente) and needed a bit of salt for added flavor. The most flavorful part of the dish was the liver sauce, which was practically bursting with umami 17.
Prior to the main savory course, we were served a lemon tea sorbet with a shot of pear brandy. The sorbet tasted almost exactly like a Lipton lemon ice tea - not bad, but also not exactly what you'd expect in a fine-dining restaurant. The brandy added a light pear flavor 16.
My main course was a steak of Japanese beef, cooked over charcoals and smoked with pine needles. It came with a grilled turnip, green peppercorns, a salty dip and a sauce that had a hint of sweetness. (I should mention that the English descriptions of the dishes were pretty minimal, as in “this is Japanese beef over pine needles”, letting us fill in the rest by more or less educated guesses.) Tableside, a Hokkaido potato gratin was added to the plate (not pictured). The beef was mostly very tender except for some less cooked and slightly chewier parts. It was lightly smoky and together with the slightly sweet sauce, it reminded me of a good BBQ. The salty dip added a flavor punch, and the pickled peppercorns were lovely as well. It turned out that the best way to enjoy this dish was to eat everything (except maybe the turnip) together in a single bit. The saltiness, sweetness, bit of acidity from the peppercorns and the tender meat all came together gloriously. More than the sum of its parts, for sure - delicious! The buttery, creamy potato gratin was lovely as well, with a silky texture and a good potato flavor. Only the turnip, juicy but not terribly flavorful, was weaker than the rest of the dish 19.
The pescatarian alternative to the steak was a skate wing prepared a la meunière, served with a mountain yam and the aforementioned potato gratin. The fish had a thready texture - not exactly my favorite, and its buttery sauce had only a little acidity, possibly from the capers. Some little croutons and lemon pieces added to the taste 16.
Shaved raclette cheese from Hokkaido was served over a warm, non-crunchy rye bread. The cheese was very flavorful, almost too much so, but the bread was pretty nondescript 16.
Variations of strawberries was the theme of the main dessert. It came with pan-cooked strawberries, cream, balsamic vinegar and a slice of citrus on top. There was definitely a strong strawberry flavor throughout (only in Japan would the middle of winter be considered the prime strawberry season). The vinegar added some interesting je ne sais quoi, and there was a hint of pepper to liven things up. A lovely, light and very focused dessert 18.
The last bite was a lemon jelly served with citrus pieces (possibly pomelo) on top. Light and fruity 17.
Service throughout our dinner was quite good, and getting by with English was no problem, only the dish description were a bit terse. Strangely, the wine pairing was not offered proactively, and I had to flag our server down for it. The courses were also served at a pretty rapid clip - there was barely any time between dishes, maybe a minute or two -, meaning that the whole tasting menu lasted for less than two hours. Luckily, the food wasn't too heavy, but this doesn't seem to be a place where one lingered over dinner.
Overall: Well prepared French cuisine with local ingredients from Hokkaido. A few dishes had somewhat toned down flavors, but there were also a few that were very, very good. As it stood, this might rate one or two rather than three Michelin stars. But it just goes to show how many good restaurants there are in areas not covered by Michelin in Japan. That's what Tabelog is for, I suppose 17.