45 Best Restaurants in Kyoto, Japan

This branch of the famed soba noodle shop is convenient to the downtown shopping area, just across the river from Gion. It's a perfect place to drop in for a lunch of udon noodle soup with a liberal sprinkling of sesame seeds.

An adventurous menu sets this restaurant inside a 150-year-old town house apart from its competition. The chef here goes to the market daily and improvises based on what's fresh. Charcoal-color walls, wooden staircases, and a great view of the Kamo River provide an elegant setting for dishes like sea urchin in wasabi broth, grilled river fish, and the ever-popular kami-nabe, a hot pot made of treated paper and cooked on an open flame at your table: it's mesmerizing and tasty. Deck seating is an option during the summer.

Nestled along the atmospheric Pontocho Alley, this establishment's black-and-white latticed storefront with a lantern above the door conceals a vegetable lover's paradise. The dining area is raised with sunken seating, allowing customers to view the busy chefs in the open kitchen. For a survey of typical Kyoto dishes, opt for the Obanzai course menu. The cooks here bring out the flavors of local organic vegetables, fish, and meats with a conspicuously restrained hand, creating flavors so light they seem to float in your mouth. Suishin, meaning "drunken heart," is a popular chain with other branches around the city.

Here's a good spot to take a tea-and-sweets break while wandering the stone-laid streets of the Gion district. The house specialty is warabimochi, made from yomogi (steamed and pounded rice and mugwort). The sweet, which has a gelatinlike consistency, is served on a heap of golden kinako, toasted and powdered soybeans. The restaurant also serves ice cream along with other Japanese sweets.

After a long day of sightseeing there is nothing better than a hearty bowl of ramen, and this place is one of the best in Kyoto. Great choice of rich broths (pork, chicken, soy sauce, salt, miso), reasonably priced, plus there's an English menu. Don't forget to order the excellent gyoza dumplings too.

Inspired by the classic food movie Tampopo (1985), directed by Kyoto-born Juzo Itami, this ramen shop's soups are well made and satisfying. The restaurant, part of a chain from Hokkaido, is well located, even offering a view of a rock garden.

The best in Kyoto-style nouvelle cuisine is served in this intimate spot in the center of town. Dishes depend on the chef's whims as much as on what's in season, but the menu might include buttery, risotto-like rice pilaf topped with delicate sea urchin; duck meat and foie gras in bite-size portions; and hors d'oeuvres such as oyster gratin, crab-and-scallop stew, and wild mushroom tempura. The fruit and vegetable salads are exceptional, and for dessert there's a take-all-you-want dessert tray with tarts, tortes, and pastries. With notice the chef will even grant special-order requests.

The huge darkened beams and white plastered walls of the former farmhouse this Italian restaurant occupies create a sophisticated rustic atmosphere, known as wabi, the Japanese love. A kimono merchant moved the structure here from Nara a generation ago. The set menu changes with the season and sometimes the month, but from simpler pasta courses to more elaborate meat and fish dishes, the food is always fresh, flavorful, and skillfully presented.

Nestled among the backstreets of northwest Kyoto, Tozentei emphasizes to-the-letter traditional Japanese cooking. The meals here, made with only local produce, are old-school enough to please a shogun. A wooden wall with a low gate fronts this intimate hideaway that fits only 12. Lunch is less pricey than dinner.

Enjoy fine traditional fare inside this distinctive red and wooden-latticed machiya-style townhouse in the heart of Gion. If you snag one of the counter seats, then the chefs prepare everything right in front of you. Dishes comprise high-quality fresh and seasonal local produce, so that means ingredients such as bamboo shoots in the spring, ayu (a succulent and small freshwater fish) in early summer, and matsutake mushrooms in the fall. The mini-kaiseki lunch costs less than half the price of dinner.

Along one of the centuries-old exit roads from the city into the mountains, this roadside inn is beloved for its multicourse kaiseki ryori dinners, duck hot pots, boar stew, and boxed lunches with mountain potatoes and barley rice. There were seven roads that led out of the city, and wayside inns such as Yamabana Heihachi-Jaya provided travelers with food and respite before the long trek ahead. On the bank of the Takano River, it is one of the more picturesque examples.

Adjacent to an inn of the same name, Yoshikawa serves multicourse kaiseki ryori lunches and dinners. The beautifully presented meal includes soup, vegetables, grilled or baked fish, and a light, crisp tempura that is the house specialty. Roasted duck is available for those who don't eat raw fish. Tempura dinners include 13 pieces of fried fish, meat, and vegetables. A special shabu-shabu set is offered to hotel guests, and a visit by a maiko or geiko can be arranged by the hotel staff. The establishment boasts a breathtaking Enshu-style landscaped garden that greatly complements this truly elegant experience.

Nestling right in the heart of Kyoto's traditional geisha district, this café serves up traditional Japanese sweets and desserts in a stylish minimalist setting. Living up to its name, the quiet and cozy space is styled like a modern art gallery, and is a great place to sip on a green tea or coffee while sampling delicate and seasonal treats such as kuzumochi (a jellylike mochi cake). An oasis of sophisticated calm among the hustle and bustle of Gion.

A Taisho-era kimono business office and home was meticulously renovated into this restaurant whose Chinese cuisine is prepared as though it were Japanese. The streetside former office is furnished with Chinese tables and chairs and tatami rooms with low tables and cushion seating; some of the areas have views of the well-groomed inner-courtyard garden. The restaurant derives its name from the wall in the bar displaying ornate pocchiri clasps used by maiko-san as decoration on the front of their obi (kimono sashes). Lunch is a Japanese-style bento box but with Chinese food. Dinner may be tofu dishes, chicken stews, and delicately flavored sea bream. For ¥11,000 you can order a meal inspired by Imperial Court cuisine, featuring savory Peking duck and seasonal delicacies such as spiny lobster and crab stew.