OUR WORLDS
ESqUISSE means “drawing”in French. It is an image of unbounded and free sensibility.
While rooted in the traditions and techniques of French cuisine, ESqUISSE incorporates Japanese ingredients and techniques to deliver a unique cuisine that is progressive and gentle.
Executive Chef Lionel Beccat grew up in the south of France, and his cuisine originates from the aromas brought by the “mistral,”the wind that blows over the Mediterranean Sea. With accents of citrus, spices, and herbs, it is simple, flavorful, and poetic.
The dishes are born from a proper attitude toward the earth and listening to the voice of the ingredients that are its blessings, bringing new life to the seasonal ingredients.
－Opens in June 2012
－Two Stars in Michelin Guide Tokyo （from 2013 to 2025）
－Four Toques（18.5/20）in Gault&Millau (From 2021 to 2024)
－2011 Lionel Beccat : Awarded the “Grade de Chevalier Dans
L’ordre Du Merite Agricole” (National Order of Agricultural Merit)
－2018 Lionel Beccat : Awarded ”Best Chef of the Year” in Gault et Millau 2018
－2021 Lionel Beccat Book publication “Cuisine of ESqUISSE” (Seibundo Shinkosha)
－2022 Lionel Beccat: Awarded 13th Shizuo Tsuji Food Culture Award
－2023 Eiji Wakabayashi : Awarded ”Best Sommelier” in Gault et Millau 2023
－2024 Yui Yamamoto: Awarded ”The Grand Prix 2023 Red Egg”and the “Asako Kishi Award”
－2024 Eiji Wakabayashi : Awarded ”Sommelier Award” in Michelin Guide 2025 Tokyo
As time goes by, I find myself drawn more and more toward purity and simplicity, toward a cuisine that does not seek to invent, but to reveal.
To reveal the hidden structure of taste, the silent intelligence of matter, the fragile balance between fire, air, and time.
To cook is to translate the breath of life into form.
It is to understand that heat is not an act of domination, but a dialogue.
It is to adjust intensity, humidity, oxidation, and texture until the ingredient begins to speak, until its inner rhythm becomes audible.
I believe it is our duty, as cooks, in a world where everything blurs, mixes, and dissolves in the hyper-consumption of the instant, to bring things back into focus in their truth, their flesh, and their emotion.
To restore to matter its presence, to nature its face, and to taste its meaning.
For cooking, in the end, is not about creating something new, but about listening, respecting, and amplifying what already exists.
It is about making the invisible audible, the essential perceptible, and the living once again tangible.
Lionel Beccat
