We’ve rated Masaikuta as good with two stars * *
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It’s a wonderful thing to discover a restaurant without the burden of expectation - to let the delicious moments just unfold and surprise you. It’s also rare. Sometimes, like when I tested Cypsèle, I don’t know much about the restaurant in advance. Sometimes I know too much… or they know too much about me.
Here’s what I knew about chef Masa Ikuta before I walked into his new eponymous restaurant in the 11th. He trained under Bruno Verjus at Table, and later worked with Stéphane Jego at L’Ami Jean. From there he went to Les Enfants du Marché, where he built a cult following — and which we previously reviewed as a favorite. He then moved to Acte II, a rooftop restaurant in the Marais that I did not recommend, calling the food “a muddled mess” despite the spectacular views.
Is it hard to show your face after you’ve said such a thing? Yes it is. Especially when, on your return visit, you’re sat within knife reach of the chef.
Any awkwardness I felt began to melt when sommelier Tom Faucoeur poured me a glass of Champagne. This is what happens when you are recognized, and I most certainly was not anonymous here. I know Faucoeur from Le Saint-Sébastien, where he worked for many years. He poured bottles there during the wake of a friend, and I was dining at Masaikuta with the widow.
This was almost laughably un-objective. My experience was clouded by guilt (the bad review), grief (the dead friend) and wine (a cure for the previous two). It was hard to judge if we were having the same experience as other customers because there were no other customers. But here’s what I can tell you, more subjectively than usual, about my dinner at Masaikuta:
THE MENU
Masaikuta offers tasting menus only. At dinner (Tuesday–Saturday), you can choose from 4 courses for 90€, 6 courses for 150€, or 8 courses for 200€. Lunch runs Wednesday through Saturday with the same options, plus a weekday-only entrée-plat-dessert menu for 60€. Wine pairings add 60€, 130€, or 180€ depending on the number of courses. We went with the 6-course dinner and the wine pairing, and here's what it included:
Foie gras and wild duck pâté en croûte - a mosaic of foie gras and colvert in thin, precise pastry — one of several amuse bouches that preceded our six-course menu. The layering was architectural, the kind of charcuterie work that requires a lot of care.
Another amuse bouche: two panko-fried oysters, shatteringly crisp outside and briny-soft within, topped with a generous spoonful of tartar sauce. Simple, greedy, gone in seconds.
The amusement continued with this duo of sardine dishes. On the left: A single sardine fillet in a clear broth dotted with chili oil and herb oil — spare and beautiful, more Japanese than French. On the right: sardines from Saint-Jean-Croix-de-Vie draped over golden churros, striped with a pink Cantabrian anchovy cream and scattered with micro herbs. The contrast between the crispy fried dough and the cool, silver-skinned fish was delicious. These were paired with Les Pieds sur Terre “Saint-Savin” 2023, a Côtes du Jura Chardonnay by Valentin Morel.
The first course featured celeriac raviole with kalamata olives, fermented black trumpet mushroom, and white truffle jus - two translucent half-moon ravioli in a golden broth pooled with drops of herby oil. The filling was earthy and complex beneath the delicate skin. It was paired with Jean-Yves Péron “Petite Robe” 2021, an alpine white from Savoie that matched the dish’s forest-floor depth.
Sea urchin with potato sauce came next - bright orange uni tongues served in their own purple-spined shell, resting on a smooth potato cream. This was where the wine pairing got interesting: Faucoeur poured a Tunisian Muscat-Razzegui blend — not on the wine list — made from 60-year-old vines on the Cap Bon peninsula and transported to Marseille by sailboat. Only 3,689 bottles exist. The floral, saline wine against the iodine richness of the urchin was one of the evening's best moments.
Veal brain tempura "comme une shirako" featured calf's brain in an airy Japanese tempura batter, served in a bone marrow consommé-ponzu with Cantabrian anchovies and cédrat. The name references shirako, the prized Japanese cod milt delicacy — Ikuta drawing a line between French offal and Japanese tradition through texture alone. Paired with Chanterêves Bourgogne Aligoté "Bas des Ees" 2023, made by Japanese winemaker Tomoko Kuriyama and her partner Guillaume Bott in Burgundy — a mirror of the kitchen's own cross-cultural logic.
Squid with bloody mary sauce - a piece of tender squid lacquered with a glossy, deep-red sauce, dusted with fine herbs. Graphic and clean — it looked almost painted on the plate. Paired with Ferme de la Sansonnière "La Rosée" 2024, a Loire rosé by Mark Angeli.
The meat course was lamb with charred green onion and harissa. The rack was rosy pink and served with a lamb roulade, charred green onion, a deep burgundy jus, and a dot of soft, smoky harissa. The plate was paired with Prieuré-Roch 2022 Vin de France, a rich Burgundy from the estate co-founded by the late Henry-Frédéric Roch of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti.
Dessert was a sort of chocolate millefeuille with a few nubbly layers sandwiching a rose-hued chocolate cream with a quenelle of ice cream. The evening's final pairing: Bruno Duchêne "L'Ambrée" 2015, a decade-old Banyuls fortified wine from the Roussillon coast.
A couple of mignardises closed the meal - warm financiers with caramelized tops and tiny cream tartlets topped with blood orange.
THE WINE LIST
Sommelier Tom Faucoeur has built one of the deeper natural wine lists in Paris, organized around obsessive depth from favored producers rather than breadth: François Rousset-Martin gets ten Jura cuvées, Mark Angeli seven Loires, Prieuré-Roch eight Burgundies climbing to a Vosne-Romanée at €850. The Jura is the spiritual center, but Austria and Italy get serious treatment, too. Most bottles fall between €55–130, with genuine entry points at €45 (Barbatruks, Fond Cyprès, Les Insouciantes).
The sommelier pairing is where things get interesting. Faucoeur doesn't just match regions to courses — he builds a narrative across them, pulling from Savoie, Jura, Loire, Burgundy, Tunisia, and the Roussillon in a single evening. Like the kitchen, the pairings think across borders.
THE VIBE
The room splits into two experiences: a candlelit dining room with deep banquettes and thick-cut wood tables, and a kitchen counter where you watch Ikuta plate at arm’s length. The materials are warm and unpolished — exposed stone, raw plaster, concrete floors, hand-blown glassware, and matte ceramic plates.
The vinyl turntable on a carved wooden cabinet against the back wall isn't decorative — both the chef and sommelier took turns spinning records all night, the playlist swinging from Coltrane to Biggie to Spandau Ballet. Ikuta was a jazz trumpeter in Japan before he turned to cooking, and the music feels personal in the way that his food does. It's less like a restaurant than like being invited to someone's apartment for dinner, if that someone happened to cook at a very high level.
The restaurant sits on the same street as Michelin-starred Amâlia and near Le Chateaubriand — a block that's become a serious gastronomic destination in the 11th.
THE VERDICT
The cooking at Masaikuta is the best I've seen from Ikuta — focused, technically confident, and genuinely original in the way it moves between French and Japanese ideas. The wine pairing alone is worth the visit for anyone serious about natural wine. There's also something genuinely unique about the atmosphere — a chef who steps away from the pass to flip a record, a sommelier who pours like he's hosting friends, a room that feels less like a restaurant than someone's home.
This is a restaurant for omnivores who love tasting menus and natural wine — fans of Septime and the nearby Chateaubriand — and who enjoy eating very well in a room that feels casual. It's also very easy to book right now. That may change as they get more press and as the tourist high season begins, but if you're looking for a special meal and haven't planned ahead, this is a fun option.
My advice: come for the tasting menu and let Faucoeur pour. The sommelier pairing adds €130 to the six-course menu — not cheap, but it made the meal. Masaikuta has the talent. It just needs the audience to match.
MASAIKUTA
26 bis rue de la Fontaine au Roi, 75011
Open Wednesday-Saturday for lunch & dinner
Open Tuesday for dinner only
Closed Sunday & Monday
Reservations online only
modern & creative
tasting menus
international flavors
nose-to-tail cooking
easy to book
chef’s counter
outdoor dining (in good weather)
excellent wine pairings
lovely wine list with a natural focus
STILL SEARCHING?
Our restaurant index organizes the restaurants we’ve anonymously visited since 2021 by location and ranks them all as:
GREAT * * *
GOOD * *
FINE *
NOT RECOMMENDED
Really amazing all the way around. First of all, what a situation for you, Meg. I’m so glad for what you got to experience and share. It all sounds and looks fantastic, and if I weren’t working away in CA today, I would certainly want to book a table. Thanks for sharing in the way that only you can.