• 4
• Good but pricey

Here's where you come to feel special. The décor was elegant; the staff was well-trained and professional; the service was superb; the food was an art in its own right. However, that does come with a price—set meals, which are all served kaiseki-style, start at TW$980 (≈US$32) per person and can go all the way up to a whopping TW$4880 (≈US$162)! We ordered the TW$980 and the TW$1380 set and shared everything. The dish presentation was exquisite, if not a little bit OTT at times. The starter soups were very good, but as the meal went on, I felt that many courses looked better than they tasted. The ingredients seemed repetitive and the flavors weak for the most part, although the fact that we were sharing bite-sized food might also have had an impact on our overall experience. That said, the two main courses were truly outstanding—a lion’s mane mushroom stir-fry and said mushrooms in black pepper sauce. These mushrooms have an incredibly meaty and complex texture that puts the much-loved portobello to shame. If we do come back, we will probably just order them and a couple of dishes a la carte and call it a night. Our meal set us back about TW$2500 (≈US$83), which was a splurge in a city with such a strong and vibrant veggie scene. The food here was decent enough—a few courses were delicious—but not that great to justify that price level (and, remember, we picked the cheapest options). The atmosphere was fancy and the service was impeccable, so there’s that.