In the summer of last year a friend asked me to join him for dinner at a newly opened restaurant in Taipei. Unbeknownst to me, chef Nagao was in my dining party. When Nagao sat down my friend said to me, “You must know Bryan”. Actually I didn’t and never tried his food. But I enjoyed eating with Nagao and told him I would visit his restaurant. In November I ate at Town for the first time. A couple of months later I went again and tried a slightly different menu. In short, I enjoyed both of my dinners.
Town is located on the third floor of a four-story building on Xinyi Road, diagonally across the street from the original Ding Tai Fung. The restaurant does not have an entrance directly off the street. But the signage on one of the doors of the storefront suggests there is one. The first time I was there I was confused as to how to enter the restaurant. To get to Town, one actually has to walk through the length of the ground floor cafe counter, pass the stairs going to the second floor, and look for a glass door on the left. The short corridor leads to a small elevator. The elevator door on the third floor opens to a transitional space that doesn’t engage the diners. The entire entry sequence is a bit awkward.
The rest of the interior design is much better considered. Before getting to the receptionist stand, one walks past the open kitchen on the left. This is a nice feature. The guests get to meet chef Nagao at the green marble pass with the heat lamps and see how their food is made. As expected, the open kitchen is clean, bright and professional. The chef can welcome the guests before taking their seats in the dining hall, as if they are coming to his home. Nagao used to split his time between his restaurants in Hong Kong and Taipei. Since Town in Hong Kong closed in March 2019 and the pandemic hit in 2020, Nagao is spending all his time in Taipei. Therefore, when one walks into Town one is likely to see Nagao in the kitchen.
The floor plan of the building consists of two structural bays of equal width. The public dining room occupies one bay and the two private rooms take up the other. Each bay has a balcony overlooking Xinyi Road. While I never see anyone on the balcony it is still nice to have floor to ceiling glass on one side of the room. The public dining room has a center aisle with seating on two sides. One side consists of three circular shaped green banquettes with round dark grey marble tables, while the other side has square tables and blue chairs set up for parties of four. The tables are nicely space.
The various light fixtures in the public dining room are all in spherical glass shapes: wall mounted next to the square tables, table mounted in between the banquettes, and ceiling-hung above the receptionist stand. The three round tables each has an additional round metal lamp above them. The ceiling above the round tables even has circular alcoves that echo the shape of the banquette. The circular shapes are contrasted with the herringbone wood flooring. It is clear that a lot of thoughts were put into the design and the overall ambiance is quite pleasant.
For both of my dinners I was seated at the first round table. The marble table and the lamp above have a retro feel as they reminded me of the Tulip table by Eero Saarinen and Arco lamp by Achille Castiglioni produced in the middle of the twentieth century. The silverware were placed on one side on a metal ledge. The table setting was pleasant but the placement of the menu was a bit awkward. The menu was tucked slightly under the top of the napkin. The napkin is folded into a rectangle with a width that matches the menu. The alignment of the menu and the napkin was clearly intentional but didn’t enhance the visual appearance of either.
Town is open only for dinner and serves one menu for all the diners. The format is a tasting menu with nine courses plus amuse-bouches to start and mignardises to end. Four out of the nine courses have two different dishes for the diners to choose. The main savory course has three to four choices and carries different prices depending on the ingredients. As the season changes so does the menu. The menus at Town actually reminds me of the menus by Thomas Keller, which uses quotation marks pervasively. The menu refers and twists traditional flavors and technique. Any food lovers would be happy to read the menu that show the depth of Nagao’s knowledge and his ease of playing with the vocabularies of different cuisines.
Dinner started with a couple of amuse-bouches. At my first dinner I was served a gougère and a waffle topped with foie gras mousse. The gougère was good but would be better if it was warmer; this is not easy as the puff is not large. The waffle was also good but a bit sweet. The flavor profile didn’t quite wake up the palette as I expected an amuse to do. In fact it dulled the appetite a bit. At my second dinner, the gougère appeared again, but the waffle was replaced by a crab tartlet topped with a sliced of black truffle. The crab was fresh and sweet and the truffle gave the flavor an earthiness. It was a delicious bite of food and made even better with a glass of champagne.
After the amuse-bouches, a Parker House roll was brought to the table wrapped in paper. The bread was warm and served with smoked pistachio butter. I was happy to see an American bread. While the bread was nice, each diner got exactly one roll and no more. The bread plate was taken away after the bread was finished. The portion of the butter was generous and the flavor was interesting, but I wished there was more bread to spread it on. Perhaps Nagao is following the more recent trend at fine dining restaurants such as Per Se and Eleven Madison Park, where bread is listed on the menu, treated as a course, and each diner gets just one.
Nagao didn’t seem to have a fixed format for the first course. At my first dinner it was a choice between lamb tartare or quail. At my second dinner it was scallop or red prawn. Some chefs set up their tasting menus with a first course that’s light, acidic, or with raw seafood, and then move into the heavier dishes. Nagao did not and instead produced dishes that were strong and full of flavors. For instance, the scallop I had was served with 36-month jamon from Cinco Jotas, chestnuts, and a soubise sauce. The dish was delicious and well made. The portion was small but just right; any bigger would be too heavy to start the dinner.
The second course was a custard which Nagao produced different variations with different ingredients and sauces. The first one I had was with crab, oxtail marmalade, and onion jus. The second time it was with abalone, caviar and chicken jus. The custard is another good dish that was packed with flavors. The dish was also very beautiful especially with the blue bowl. The wooden spoon provided to eat the dish with was a nice break from the ubiquitous stainless tableware.
However there was no pause on flavors. The third course that followed was a beef tripe and sweetbread with ragout. I like offal and I believe Nagao does as well. I enjoyed eating this dish. But I wouldn’t mind having some bread on the side to sop up the sauce.
A soup was the fourth course. While I knew from the menu that it wasn’t something light such as a consommé or vegetable soup, I didn’t expect a full body bouillabaisse. At my two dinners, Nagao made the fish soup with different toppings; once with scallop and cauliflower, and the other with shirako and rouille. The soup was hearty and very flavorful.
The fifth course was a pasta. There were two choices and one of them was uni tagliatelle that carried a supplemental charge of NT$220. The uni was served whole and sat on a small bed of pasta with slivers of jamon Iberico. I really enjoyed this dish, however I wished there were more pasta. On my second dinner I had a small bite of my dining companion’s uni pasta and it was a bit too salty. The ingredients, uni, Iberico ham, and cured pork fat were all salty to begin with so they could easily make the dish over seasoned. My friend’s pasta was also not hot enough. Since the pasta and the uni were not tossed in a hot pan, the temperature of the dish was not easy to control. This dish was really delicious when it was executed well.
For my second dinner I tried the ravioli with peas and black truffle. The dish tasted as good as it looked.
The sixth course was a seafood. At my first dinner I had an abalone with foie gras, house-made XO sauce, radish, and grapefruit. The dish was well executed and good but I wanted a bit more balance of flavors.
The main savory dish was the seventh course. The portion for this dish was larger than the previous courses. There were three to four choices. The choice also determined the price of the entire dinner, ranging from around NT$2,480 to NT$2,880. Each of the main course also came with a side dish. I’ve tried three of the main courses and all of them were very good. At my first dinner I had the slow-cooked suckling pig, which was a reference to Kalua, the traditional cooking method in Hawaii. Since Nagao grew up in Hawaii, this could be considered a version of his hometown cooking. The pork was beautiful and reminded me of the Meat-Shaped Stone at the National Palace Museum. The side dish was a pork fat rice that was very delicious and reminded me of the rice dishes in Cantonese cuisine.
At my second dinner I had the beef tongue with a side dish of beef cheek pie. It was another very nice dish that was well executed; just look at the sheen on all the sauces. However, the dish was almost a bit too much of a good thing. I wanted more contrast and balance to the high fat content of the beef tongue. I also ate half of my companion’s lobster with green Thai curry. My friend felt the lobster was under cooked, but I thought it was perfect. The flavor was interesting and very good. The side dish was a small lobster roll. All the main courses had many components and required a lot of work. They were well made and showed the range of Nagao’s cooking. Based on the main courses, it was hard to pin down Nagao’s style as he didn’t limit himself to any particular type of cuisines nor flavors.
At both of my dinners I chose to have the wine pairing. There were two options and the prices were reasonable: 4 glasses for NT$1,280 or 6 glasses for NT$1,880. I enjoyed the conversations with the sommelier. She chose wines from a wide range of areas, including Alsace, Hungary, Austria, and Sicily; there was also sake from Japan. I agreed with her the wines from Alsace went well with Nagao’s food. I was happy to see her pour wines from Alsace and Austria because people in Taipei don’t drink enough from these regions; usually there’s too much focus on Bordeaux and Burgundy.
The eighth course was a combination of a cheese course and pre-dessert. Similar to Thomas Keller, I suspect Nagao likes cheese and wants to serve it without bringing a whole cheese cart into the dining room. Instead of having a stand alone composed cheese course as Keller does at Per Se, Nagao combines the cheese with an ice cream or sorbet on top. This is an interesting idea that I don’t think I’ve encountered before. I had the Taleggio cheese and celery lemon sorbet and the Brie with black truffle ice cream.
The last course was the dessert and both times I had the chocolate mousse flavored with Longan and served with grape sorbet. The flavors were wonderful and I liked the combinations. But the hazelnut chip on top of the mousse was crisp at the first dinner and less so on the second. After the desserts there were two mignardises to accompany the coffee or tea. The mignardises were well made and a nice way to end the dinner.
The service at my two dinners was very nice and the experience was very pleasant. The noise level at the restaurant was not high and I felt comfortable lingering at the restaurant.
One of the problems with Town is consistency. I had the uni pasta and the chocolate dessert at two separate dinners and the qualities ranged from great to so-so. Perhaps there were simply too many components in the dinner and the ambitions of Nagao were not matched by the capabilities of his staff. Nevertheless I have a hard time understanding why Town is not in the Michelin Guide Taipei. Everyone knows that Michelin places a great emphasis on consistency. While this may preclude Town from getting a star, but surely Town deserves a Plate recognition.
Dining at Town begs the question, are there too much flavors? This is a question I never imagined I would ask in Taipei. The diners in Taipei have a tendency towards blandness, demanding chefs to use less salt and less sugar. As such, often times there are simply not enough flavors. Town is just the opposite. From the first course to the last, Nagao doesn’t let up with the packing of flavors. And since his flavor profile tends towards salty, sweet, umami, and less on acidity and bitter, there is the danger of palette fatigue. The flavors are big and direct but after several courses one craves for more contrast, balance, and subtleties.
It is also possible that some of the palette fatigue is my own doing. Like a moth to flame, when I see dishes with tongue, sweetbread, foie gras, jamon, and uni on the menu, I will order them. The two menus I had were also for the winter time and it was the season for heavier and more hearty food.
When one eats at Town one gets Nagao’s personalities on the plates. Did every dish work and deliver the wow effect? Not necessarily. Were all the flavors engineered and balanced precisely? Not all the time. But what’s wonderful about Nagao is his unique ideas and interesting combinations of flavors that one won’t find elsewhere in Taipei. He uses his experience from different parts of the world and put his own spin on the different cuisines. He understands the culinary traditions but is not bounded by them. Call it fusion or whatever term one likes, Nagao is doing his own food and it is a very good thing.
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