[REVIEW] 75640 One Piece: The Baratie Floating Restaurant

[MKJoshA]

INTRODUCTION

There's always room for you
If you wanna be my friend
We are, we are on the cruise!
We are!

It's been around since 1997 but this year is the first time Lego has delved into the world of One Piece. Beginning as a serialized manga before production began on the anime, Netflix picked up the long-running show in 2023 to produce a live action version. Season 2 of the live action adaptation airs next year in 2026. That made 2025 the perfect time for Lego to team up and create the first wave of One Piece sets.

This is my 5th and final review of this theme. You can read my review of the Going Merry, the Windmill Village Hut, Buggy's Circus Tent and Battle at Arlong Park respectively. 

Chronologically, this set covers the 5th an 6th episodes of the 8 episode season 1. But what would One Piece be without a crazy amount of back-story episodes! So let's go back in time before the battle at Arlong Park and see what makes the Baratie so special. 

SET INFORMATION
Number: 75640
Title: The Baratie Floating Restaurant
Theme: One Piece
Released: 2025
Part Count: 3402
Box Dimensions: 52 x 47.5 x 12 cm
Weight: 4680g
Set Price (RRP): £269.99/$329.99/€299.99
Price per Part: 7.9p/9.7c/8.8c
Links: Brickset, Bricklink

THE BOX AND WHAT'S INSIDE

The box is massive as benefits a set of this size. Meant to be more of an Icons style display piece, the box forgoes the colorful background and opts for a classy black instead.

Inside the box no space there is no empty space. It is jam packed with bricks.

We get 2 packages for the instruction books and stickers.

And we get 2 sticker sheets. The stickers are used sparingly, but for a set this size I wish we had gotten prints instead.

THE BUILD

Unfortunately, first impressions on this build are not the best. The build starts with the fish's mouth at the front of the ship. And just a couple bags in the unsightly injection points are plentiful. But perhaps even more jarring is the color variance of the 1x4 modified plates. Most have the standard hue, but a few are more peachy. 

Can you spot the 3 off-colored pieces here?

The unsightly injection mold points continue all through the set. It's barely noticeable on some pieces, but on colors like reddish brown it's an awful eyesore. Those flaws aside, the build was fantastic from start to finish.

The front of the mouth is built up with a wide variety of pieces to give it both a rounded shape and secure connection points.

Shaping for the fish head is achieved by using newer curved pieces.

Other curves are made using a new, shorter version of a classic curved brick. The tan is what's in the set, the grey is what existed before.

The end result is a very close replica of the front of the Baratie.

Moving on to the rest of the floating restaurant we build the grand staircase allowing guests to descend to the dinning area. This is done by stacking 1x5 technic plates, 1x4 rounded plates, and tiles and wedge plates. 

The result looks excellent.

Put together, the sections start to take on the shape of the Baratie. 

To get the shape of the ship, large panels are built for the right and left sides and then attached using clips.

This is a common technique in sets these days, but the way the Baratie uses the curved bricks to get a perfectly flush connection is impressive.

The left panel is connected using this unique method.

And the right panel is connected using clips.

Only half-way through the bags but already the set is too big for my light-box!

Next I have to show an oddity I've never noticed in Lego pieces before. 

As I was finishing the right panel I noticed an odd gap between these brown L-tiles. So I did some testing.

The top row are the tiles included in the Baratie set. The bottom four rows are pieces from my collection. You can see that the black and gray have no noticeable gap. However, even my older browns have a little more of a gap.

Rotate the pieces and the gap disappears from the newer brown L-tiles.

So I put the tiles back, rotated this time and you can see that a new gap is there.

And here's back at the original state. These are very odd variances in piece sizes. Has anyone else had this problem?

Rounding off my list of complaints, here are some more injection mold marks extra noticeable on the pearl gold pieces.

And here are 2 of the stickers used to make a lantern. My fingerprints mar the overall affect and I question if it was really necessary to use stickers at all for this part.

The lanterns hang belong the railing and above the main door.

The back of the model is doll-house style with lots of space to place figures. The curved seats allow 3 minifigures to be seated comfortably.

The orange seats are built on turn tables and can therefore move though they aren't intended to.

The kitchen is well furnished with food and equipment, though it's very tight and hard to place minifigures. Getting Luffy into his Chore-Boy position at the sink took many tries!

Leading out of the kitchen is a back door. If you're a starving pirate this is where you enter so that Sanji can feed you.

Zeff's office has a transponder snail and some other pirate paraphernalia. Inside the cabinet is a pearly pink jar. If this is a reference to something I don't know what!

The upper levels house treasure. This has nothing to do with the show, live action or anime. But it's a nice way to fill the space.

The top part can come off to allow access underneath, but it's not really needed.

In front of the main door is a weathered platform to recreate Mihawk and Zoro's fight. I like the weathered look, but having those gaps filled with plates would have been better. It's hard to pose more than a couple figures on the platform since the gaps in the tiles don't allow the figures to pivot at all.

The splat gear turns to two round jumper plates allowing to figures to sword fight each other. This is a brilliant idea. However, with the sword in Zoro's mouth and the size of Mihawk's blade, Yoru, it means if you fight with them their blades are always knocking against the mermaid statues. The platform should have been at least 1 stud longer.

Speaking of swords. Mihawk's blade is an amazing new element. It has a stud on one side of the handle to allow it to stick to the neck bracket on Mihawk for easy carrying. And Zoro's third blade, which he holds with his moth is also a new element. It can be held by a hand, but the plastic is soft and mine got damaged by putting in a hand. I really wish they would have made a neck-bracket with a clip to hold any sword. But I guess the sword wouldn't have been as close to Zoro's mouth then.

Much like the Going Merry, the Baratie tries to use forced perspective to get both a display model and a playset in one. However, where the Going Merry does it well, the Baratie fails in many aspects. The front of the Going Merry is mostly minifigure scale and moving back it becomes more and more micro. The Baratie jumps between two scales more sporadically. The micro door between the fish's mouth and the main door is micro scale, but it's a jarring contrast between the two minifigure scale parts. The outside balcony in front of the ship's sign are minifigure scale, but the sign itself is micro scale. It's tricky to balance the scales like that and the Baratie doesn't quite make it.

Put the Going Merry up next to the Baratie and the scale doesn't work either. The Baratie should be much bigger in size comparison. 

The sections that are minifigure scale are great, it's the micro scale that doesn't seem to fit.

THE MINIFIGURES

There are a total of 10 charaters included in this set.

First off we have the main crew of the Straw-Hat Pirates. Zoro, Nami, Luffy, Usopp and Sanji.

They all have alternate faces and pieces created specifically for One Piece.

They other five are Zeff, the owner of the Baratie; Garp, a navy Vice Admiral and Luff's grandpa; Helmeppo and Kody, Navy cadets; and Mihawk, one of the 7 warlords. All fit the context of the Baratie episodes well. I'm glad we got some Navy members. Though I wish they would have left off the Cadet badge from the two cadets. We can't re-create some of Luffy's battles against the navy yet! Missing from the line up is Patisserie Patty. His inclusion would have made the line-up perfect.

Zeff uses a new beard piece and in a new color. It's called Ochre on Bricklink. Here you can see how it compares to some other Lego yellow hair colors.

Some have been unhappy with the choice of a cowboy hat for Mihawk. So I tried switch it out for the musketeer one. The feather looks really good, but the hat isn't quite right. It also doesn't allow for his sword to attach behind as the brim rests too low. What Mihawk needs is a cowboy hat with a feather hole, but that would have been a new mold. Of the two, I think the cowboy hat is a good choice. I also changed Garp's hair as the spiked hair didn't seem to represent him well. If Lego made the piece I used in light gray it would have been perfect.

Here's the modified Mihawk in his coffin shaped boat. Holding his sword he looks impressive, but a little too much like Barabossa for my taste.

OVERALL

As far as being the largest set in this wave I think the Baratie could have done a little better with the Straw Hat crew. 

Across all 5 sets we get 5 different versions of Luffy. The Baratie version is on the right. He's only technically exclusive due to the specific match up of hat and face print. But if you've bought the other sets you already have this Luffy. I like that they gave him his classic red vest, but an option would have been to have a different outfit for the Baratie or at least a unique face print.

Zoro gets a total of 3 versions. The Baratie version on the right again is exactly the same as the Buggy set. Another missed opportunity to include something special.

Nami gets 4 versions. The only unique version is from the Arlong Park set. Again, I love that they focused on her classic outfit. But the Baratie was a chance to include something new.

Usopp gets 3 versions with the Baratie version the same as the Going Merry, just without the slingshot.

Sanji gets the short end of the stick with only 2 versions. And here, the Baratie gives us a unique outfit that's totally in character and a great addition. I would have loved a face print with hearts for eyes though.

The chase gimmick for the One Piece sets are the Wanted Posters. The Baratie comes with 5 random 2x3 tiles. I got 2 Gold Rogers, 2 Kuros, and 1 Don Krieg. Across all 5 sets I got 2 Kuros, 4 Buggys, 2 Don Kriegs, 2 Alvidas, 2 Arlongs, and 2 Gold Rogers. That means I'm still missing Luffy and Mihawk. Almost 600 euros worth of sets and I still don't have a full set. I appreciate the idea of chasing after the posters. But I think Lego needs to do a better job. Either ensure each set has 0 duplicates giving someone better odds at getting a full set or they need to include all 8 in the Baratie.

SCORE
How do I rate this set?

DESIGN 8
This is a decent display piece and playset. Though it succeeds better as a playset. It tries to balance scales and doesn't quite reach the mark.

BUILDING EXPERIENCE 10
This was thoroughly fun to build. There are many great techniques and it never felt repetitive.

FEATURES 9
There are so many places to put figures, there are a great number of treasures scattered around the ship, and a huge selection of food and food prep pieces. That gives you a lot of ways to display the set. There is also the great fighting feature though the platform needs to be just a little bigger. If there was better space to place minifgures and a larger platform this would be a 10.

PLAYABILITY 10
The Baratie really shines when it comes to play. Storytelling is easy. And sword fights are fun if you use shorter swords. 

PARTS 9
There is a great variety of pieces in this set. The color choice is okay, but the constant switching from red to brown doesn't quite do it for me. I don't know what they could have changed, but I feel like some of the colors should have been different.

VALUE FOR MONEY 9
You get a great number of parts for the price. However, I feel like we needed at least one member of the Baratie's staff to help Sanji and Zeff. Even if you had to trade out Helmeppo to get him. Also, the distribution of the Wanted Posters needed to be better.

FINAL SCORE: 9
As the flagship set of the first One Piece wave the Baratie had a lot to live up to. And it gets close. It's a great model with fantastic techniques. The figure selection, while not unique enough for this set, is decent. If you're a fan of One Piece I would say this set is worth getting. It's already been on sale on Amazon so you might get lucky and find a good deal for Christmas. However, if you're looking for the best bang-for-your-buck the Going Merry is a far better choice. Both sets have the full Straw Hat crew. And the extra figures in the Baratie are nice, but little things like the wrong hair for Garp and the "Cadet" printed on Helmeppo and Koby's uniforms lower the overall appeal. 

 

And now, to wrap up our story. Luffy and his crew discovered an island and now face it's lone inhabitant... 

 Hey, you're interrupting our meal!

 I am the spirit of Gol D. Roger! Who disturbs my rest?

 You're not Roger, just who are you?

 Alright, you got me. I just like my privacy and that usually scares people off.

 Geez, don't scare us like that!

 Yeah, it's not very nice of you.

 Trust me, you don't want to mess with our captain.

 And why's that?

 I'm going to become King of the Pirates!

 Har har har! I wish you luck boy. May you have better luck finding Gol D. Roger's treasure than I have of looking like him!

And so Luffy and his crew sailed off to find the One Piece!

[Andrijan]

Why are all one piece set reviews on the frontpage?