Decadent dining galore

Kyoto is one of the world’s great food cities. In fact, when you consider atmosphere, service and quality, it’s hard to think of a city where you get more bang for your dining buck.

Kyoto punches way above its weight in the culinary arena.

You can pretty much find a great dining option in any neighbourhood, but the majority of the best spots are clustered downtown.

Among the reasons for this is that Kyoto was the centre of the country for most of its history, and its chefs had to please the fussiest of palates in the realm: the imperial court, the nobility and the heads of the main religious sects.

Another reason for Kyoto’s excellent cuisine is the surrounding natural resources. The city sits atop very good groundwater (essential for making good tofu, sake and tea), and has very fertile soil for growing vegetables in the city and surrounding areas. In fact, you can still find several distinct subspecies of vegetables in the city’s markets known as kyo-yasai (Kyoto vegetables).

The result is a relatively small city packed with fine restaurants.

At the heart of all the cultured sophistication in Kyoto is the Gion district, with its geisha in all their powdered, deliberate, beauty; its exclusive ryotei restaurants, and its unforgiving mantra ichigen-san okotowari (guests by introduction only) ... If you do manage to get beyond the doors of a top Kyoto restaurant, you’ll find either the Zen-inspired, frugal and unadorned cha-kaiseki, or full restaurant-style (read banquet) kaiseki. On the simplest level a kaiseki meal is made up of one soup and three side dishes, served with rice and pickles, yet often the courses run into double figures, their content determined by season and the whim of the ryori-cho (top chef).

In the nation’s collective imagination, Kyoto is a temple-town, and indeed its vegetarian Buddhist-inspired cuisine is unmissable. Kyoto is famed for its tofu (soybean curd), a result of the city’s excellent water and large population of (theoretically) vegetarian Buddhist monks. There are numerous tofu-ya-san (tofu makers) scattered throughout the city and a legion of exquisite yudofu (tofu cooked in a pot) restaurants — many are concentrated in Northern Higashiyama along the roads around Nanzen-ji temple and in the Arashiyama area. One typical Kyoto tofu by-product is called yuba (sheets of the chewy, thin film that settles on the surface of vats of simmering soymilk). This turns up in many ryokan meals and kaiseki restaurants.

Yet Kyoto today is equally secular. It is a thriving university town, which might account for its unusually large concentration of ramen shops.

There’s no particular Kyoto style although the dark, thick peppery broth of shimpuku-saikan is attracting much attention in ramen connoisseur circles.

If you have something of a sweet tooth, Kyoto will more than satisfy your cravings. Wagashi is a general name given to a variety of sweets and cakes that is available throughout Japan, and the traditional Kyoto confectionery is known as kyo-gashi. The city is the perfect spot to sample these sugary temptations, thanks to its long tradition rooted in tea ceremony and wagashi making.

Kyoto’s dining districts are:

Kyoto Station & south

There are places to eat scattered all around the Kyoto Station building and a handful of izakaya (Japanese pub-eateries) and local spots further south.

Downtown Kyoto

The centre of Kyoto’s dining scene, it has the thickest concentration of restaurants in the city.

Southern Higashiyama

Offerings here fall into two categories: tourist establishments near the temples and refined places in Gion.

Arashiyama & Sagano

Cheap restaurants for tourists cram the main drag, with a few high-end spots further out and along the river with some lovely river views.

Fushimi sake district

Fushimi, home to 37 sake breweries, is one of Japan’s most famous sake-producing regions.

Its location on the Uji-gawa river made it perfect for sake production, as fresh, high-quality rice was readily available from the fields of neighbouring Shiga-ken and the final product could be easily loaded on to boats for export downriver to Osaka.

The largest of Fushimi’s sake breweries is Gekkeikan Okura Sake Museum, the world’s leading producer of sake. Although most of the sake is now made in Osaka, a limited amount is still handmade in a Meiji-era sakagura (sake brewery) in Fushimi. The museum is home to a collection of artefacts and memorabilia tracing the 350-year history of Gekkeikan and the sake-brewing process.

Nishiki Market

Nationwide it is known as Kyo no daidokoro, Kyoto’s kitchen, and a market has existed on the site of the city’s Nishiki Market since the 17th century. Today over 100 stalls ply their wares in the covered, pedestrian-only arcade that stretches between Teramachi Shotengai (market streets) and Takakura-dori in the heart of downtown Kyoto, and it is as much of a tourist attraction as the city’s famed temples.

Japan’s imperial family was long Nishiki’s most prestigious and wealthy customer. Even today the Imperial Household, ensconced in the new upstart capital 500km east, orders its specialty foodstuffs from the market.

A stroll along Nishiki is a must for all Kyoto-bound food lovers. It is easy to spend several hours pottering, trying to fathom how to use many of the exotic wares on display. If you stop in at Aritsugu, knife-makers to the imperial family for four centuries, it is also easy to spend your entire holiday budget.

 

The book

This is an extract from Lonely Planet, Eat Japan, RRP $29.99.