l'Artisan Furansu Sushi Bar Chef experience - UPDATED (restaurant closed)

l'Artisan Furansu Sushi Bar Chef experience

ALAS THIS RESTAURANT HAS CLOSED FOR GOOD

Last Tuesday I heard on the grapevine that famous Japanese sushi chef Gohei Kishi would be making an appearance at l'Artisan Furansu in the centre of Madrid, near tourist favourite Plaza Santa Ana. He’s worked all over the world in Michelin Star restaurants and worked with Gordon Ramsay. Sushi is one of my favourite things to eat and L'artisan Furansu specialises on Sushi one night a week (Though it's always available on the menu).

Myself and Gohei Kishi, our chef and entertainer for the evening

He would be hand preparing sushi in front of us whilst we sat at the bar and conversed with him and each other. There were some dishes he prepared with flame too, flame sushi. There were Japanese movies playing on the TV screen above the bar and the lights were low. We were four friends and at about 21:00 two more people with reservations arrived, the chef quickly brought them up to speed so that we were all being served the same dishes at the same time.

Gohei Kishi hand preparing one of the 10 plates we enjoyed. Note the tense atmosphere in the movie playing above his head.

The experience is only available for 6 people each time as that’s how much space they have to sit at the bar comfortably. It was quite last minute but we were 6 people and the experience lasted around 2 hours. On Monday nights they have Ramen and on Thursday nights they have an "afterwork" for drinks and tapas which begins at 19:00, Gohei Kishi joked that at 18:00 the expats start forming a line outside trying to get inside, not used to the typical opening times of 20:00 in Spain.

The food was exquisite, easily one of the best sushi menus I’ve had in Europe and as good as anything I had in Japan. The quality of the ingredients was evident especially when washed down with Japanese beer and sake, perfect food pairings. The skill of the chef to combine the ingredients to make something that was better than the sum of it's parts also had it's part to play. Presentation was top notch as you can see, my skills as a photographer have quite a way to go though!

There were 10 “plates” in all, sashimi, apetiser, sushi , miso soup with shrimp heads and a matcha green tea ice cream served with strawberries! It cost about 45€ for the tasting menu and drinks were separate, for 2 of us the total was 110€. Well worth it for a very nice experience, suitable for special occasion or if you’ve got no plans for a Tuesday hahaha. He’ll be back every Tuesday and trying to make the experience more interactive.

Follow them on facebook and instragram to find out more, website details are below. Enjoy the photos, any questions please ask or comment!

This is a sashimi dish, some ceviche influences there too I think!

There's three different types of fish stuffed into this roll.

Sweet shrimp appetiser.

All of the fish simply melted in the mouth, it was incredible

Contact Details

Calle Ventura de la Vega, 15, 28014 Madrid - Metro stops Sevilla, Sol, Anton Martin

Phone: 914 20 31 72

L'Artisan Furansu Website

What is Madrid Wine Club?!

What is Madrid Wine Club? (now defunct)

Read on for some history from the past, at the bottom there’s updated info I have for wine socials.

I had been involved in running The Madrid wine club Since the end of 2017, I got involved before their first social meeting but wasn’t able to attend due to other commitments.

Since then I’ve been at each event pouring your wine, taking your money when you arrive and marking your name off the list when you take your hand-picked wines home. I'm even preparing part of the extensive tasting notes you get emailed as a full member!

So, what is the wine club?

Every month, the organisers, hand pick 2 bottles of wine, usually from smaller producers making something more interesting than bigger commercial producers.

Then we contact our members reminding them to transfer the money, 20€, to the bank account (that info is emailed out separately) so that they can reserve wines and helps us know how many wines to order!

I like it when wine has a persons name on it, shame this one doesn't say Gareth

Wow, that sounds amazing, tell me more!

Currently, the first Saturday of every month we hold our wine club social event where you can come along and enjoy that month’s wine with other members. We have an informal tasting but we don’t get into too much detail. Members are emailed detailed tasting notes which talk about the winery, the region and the wine itself. It’s available in Spanish and English.

Great times at Madrid wine club social events

If you need to pay in cash then you can do that at the event. It’s 10€ for the social only, if you’re not sure about buying the wines themselves.

This is the perfect opportunity for you to take your wines home at the end of the evening, they’ll be waiting for you there.

Alternatively, if you can’t make it, don’t worry, we have an agreement with El Brabantino ( Calle de Fray Ceferino González, 5, 28005 El Rastro ) near where we are currently holding our monthly social Atelier Cafe de la Llana, Calle de Embajadores, 26, 28012 El Rastro, and you can collect your wines there.

We’re also looking at doing wine delivery for a small extra charge.

Some hand written bottles and organic wines

As the wine club is defunct we have a simpler wine tasting group now called Club de vinos Madrid. It currently only exists on meetup, click on the link below for more details.

https://www.meetup.com/Club-de-vinos-Madrid/

Enjoy wine, responsibly :D