Where to eat in Kyoto, the former Japanese capital mixing tradition and innovation

At the eastern edge of Kyoto city, a chopstick slides along the sides of a half-moon pot, freeing a crescent of delicately formed skin. In a deft motion, Junsei’s kitchen manager swoops the chopstick underneath and lifts the skin draping over the bamboo in a wrinkled curtain the colour of buttermilk. He dips it, still dripping, in citrusy ponzu sauce, hands me the chopstick and gestures: “Now, you eat.”

We’re making yuba, a dish of barely simmered soy milk that slowly forms a thin, delectably chewy layer. A kind of unutterably silken tofu, yuba hovers between solid and liquid, each bite releasing bliss-worthy bursts of cream and yuzu. 

Junsei, a family-run restaurant beside Nanzenji Temple, specialises in tofu and offers an entire menu dedicated to the unassuming soybean. The restaurant is now in the hands of Naruhito Ueda, a suited and booted third-generation president who sits opposite me as plate after plate of tofu, mountain vegetables, mochi (rice cakes) and fish emerge from the kitchen. Each time I bring my hands together, ready to tuck in with a traditional muttered “Itadakimasu”, I’m told to hold off: there’s more to come. Fourteen dishes later, it’s the yuba I keep coming back to. It takes several polite attempts to convince Ueda-san to join my dining marathon, but eventually he caves and tucks into the addictive satin tofu too.

“The yuba tobanyaki are my favourite,” he explains, looking somewhat wistfully at the empty plate where this rolled, grilled version once sat. “But I love the fresh yuba, too. Then it’s probably the yudofu (meaning ‘hot water tofu’) — we make 300 servings of that fresh every morning, every day of the year.”

Kyoto is Japan’s tofu capital. Brought over from China a millennium ago, myriad versions are still pressed, poured and pounded across the city each day. Soft blocks of yudofu are the city’s most famous but yuba is its most unique, straddling the two pillars of Kyoto cuisine: shojin and kaiseki ryori. 

Kaiseki is what most visitors know of Kyoto gastronomy: high-end court cuisine presented as a seemingly endless stream of small, seasonal dishes. It’s exquisite, expensive, elegant food that has tourists queuing around hush-hush corners and tiptoeing, intimidated, into beautiful gated boltholes. It’s kaiseki that first brought Kyoto to Michelin’s attention in 2009, when the city was showered with 110 stars, eclipsing New York’s number. This year, it beat Paris’s number of Michelin-recommended restaurants.

To Japanese people, this isn’t a surprise. Kyoto is widely considered their country’s food capital. Besides the fine-dining culture, it also has an ancient gastronomic heritage most foreigners know nothing of. A large part of that’s rooted in shojin ryori — a plant-based Buddhist cuisine. Kyoto is a city half built on Buddhism; it’s overrun with temples, their dark wood eaves escaping from side streets, their scarlet gates marking out territory on crowded intersections. Its cuisine is no different, but while Buddhism is the reason behind the quantity of tofu sold here, its exceptional quality comes down to water. 

Whenever I come to Kyoto, the first place I head to is the river. The Kamo spills through the east, cutting the old capital in two. At the riverbank, the back end of the elegant city reveals itself in a clumsy, delightful hodgepodge of timber and high noryo-yuka stilted terraces. In daylight, thousands of tourists and locals pour across the river’s bridges and down its banks, picnicking or quick-marching to Gion’s teeming streets. Come twilight, the river water is gilded with the reflections of lantern-lit teahouses. The Kamo’s pure, clean water is key to more than just the city’s prized yudofu. It also delivers fresh river fish and forms the backbone of Kyoto’s sake, lauded matcha and modern Kyotoites’ beloved coffee. The Kamo feeds its farms, which produce quality fruit and vegetables. 

Japanese vegetarianism was founded on Kyoto’s rivers and produce, so it’s unsurprising the country’s new wave of veganism has started here, too. Trundling northeast by bus takes me to the un-touristy suburb of Shimogamo. Sitting at the confluence of the Kamo and Takano rivers, Shimogamo is home to Towzen, said to be the world’s first vegan ramen shop. Tucked between family homes, the restaurant is entirely missable, but inside it’s a grotto of oddments and alcoves, where visitors are banned from taking photos. 

Having never understood the Japanese and Western obsession with ramen, it’s hard to believe that the vegan version will finally sell it to me. Yet the pitch-black broth of shiitake, soy milk and seaweed is brilliant — the best I’ve ever had, in fact. Topped with yudofu and shimeji mushrooms, charcoal adds a suspicion of smoke to the broth that cuts the soy milk’s creaminess. It’s balanced flawlessly and I’m soon slurping and scooping my way to the bottom of the lapis-blue-glazed bowl.

Towzen’s popularity — and proliferation of copycats — shows that Kyoto’s somewhat old-fashioned vegetarianism has come full circle, reformed for a new generation of consumers. It’s an unexpected revelation in a city so attached to tradition, but many of its best chefs say that stuffy image needs readjusting.

“Kyoto has had a unique food culture since ancient times, with people from various walks of life such as emperors, monks, court nobles and tea masters living in the city,” explains Makoto Okamoto, head chef and owner of La Bombance Gion, where I’ve sat down to a meticulously plated modern take on an authentic Japanese dinner. “But its people have always had a culture of taking in new things and digesting them while preserving Kyoto, so I don’t think there’s any resistance to new arrangements of traditional cuisine.”

La Bombance Gion is an unusual culinary case. The original branch began life in Tokyo in 2004, but in 2019 Okamoto-san opened another in Kyoto’s historic nightlife district — a migration that usually happens the other way round. Kyoto was the capital of Japan for 1,075 years and gastronomy has traditionally flowed from here to Tokyo. 

The restaurant’s set menu relies on Kyoto prefecture’s produce, splendidly changing alongside the seasons. Naturally there’s sushi — inescapable and butter-soft — but the standouts lie elsewhere. The smell of the Italian-inspired poached clams alone is heavenly, and its gentle sea-and-salt warmth doesn’t disappoint, with seasonal kinome leaf buds adding floral and citrus notes. Dessert is equally divine, incorporating a sweet white bean and apple rice-paper parcel, and plump white and red strawberries so flavourful it’s as if the berries’ very lifeblood is on the plate.

Despite La Bombance’s slick interiors and hushed haute-cuisine, there’s still an element of the homely — any rice left over from your meal is made into take-home onigiri (rice balls). It’s a gentle nod to Kyoto’s old obanzai cuisine — everyday, home-cooked meals designed to reduce food waste and typically made using at least 50% local ingredients. You can find obanzai in many veteran Kyoto restaurants, tucked into side streets and around unassuming corners where old men fill izakaya bars with plumes of tobacco and too-loud laughter. 

It’s another side to the aristocratic city, one that crops up again and again if you know where to look. In Kyoto’s southern quarter, tourists swarm Fushimi-Inari’s corridor of red gates, while nearby the Fushimi-Momoyama sake district lies silent. I’m the only westerner wandering its preserved streets, where scorched wood exteriors and windows slatted with dark koshi tiles conceal centuries-old breweries. Fushimi’s sake lineage dates back to the 14th century, and the area’s Gekkeikan Okura is one of the oldest family-owned companies in the world (founded 1637), as well as Japan’s largest sake museum. Even to a lackadaisical drinker like me, its labels are instantly recognisable. 

I meander to Kizakura Kappa’s well-stocked shop in an effort to find something to sip by the unbelievably picturesque — and near-deserted — branch of the Uji River. A cold and lightly creamy Nama Chozo in hand, I watch the Uji run by crisp grass banks and chattering locals. It’s the same water that winds through the city’s runnel-lined streets; the same iron-free springs that Kizakura uses to make its perfectly smooth sake. 

No matter how forcefully the rivers here flow, the water stays the same, continuing to feed the city that evolves around it. Though it may be the gatekeeper of Japan’s gourmet traditions, Kyoto, just like the water, never stands still, bridging the gap between institution and innovation. In Kyoto, you can swallow centuries and still have room for more.  

Four restaurants to try in Kyoto

1. Ippodo

Your nose will find Ippodo’s 300-year-old store before you see it. The teahouse exudes matcha’s unmistakable grassy scent, as if the green paste runs through its guttering into the surrounding streets. The name, meaning ‘preserve one’, was bestowed by a prince who loved Ippodo’s tea and wanted it to uphold Kyoto’s matcha traditions. Try a green tea or hojicha (barley tea) set, served with seasonal wagashi sweets. From ¥770 (£4.20). 

2. Hoshinoya Kyoto

In a quiet hillside location near the shrines and bamboo groves of Arashiyama, this 100-year-old riverside ryokan includes a brilliant restaurant run by chef Yoshihiro Ishii. Seasonal set menus use ingredients gathered in Kyoto to create playful, stunningly presented dishes such as pink sakura-inspired greenling fish soup or crispy Wakasa-style (scales on) tilefish and simmered bamboo shoots. Stay overnight and you’ll get a bountiful nabe hotpot breakfast. Meals from ¥20,000 (£110) per person, alcohol not included. 

3. Ichimonjiya Wasuke

Sat beside the Imamiya Shrine, this family mochi shop has been feeding shrine-goers since 1002. Its millennium-old recipe for Kyoto’s classic abura mochi hasn’t changed. Mochi — a sticky, chewy pounded rice cake — is skewered and sprinkled in kinako (roasted soybean powder), before being grilled over charcoal in front of the shop. They’re finally slathered in sweet brown miso and served in piles alongside green tea. ¥600 (£3.30) for a tea and mochi set.

4. Towzen

In the northern suburbs, Towzen claims to be the world’s first vegan ramen restaurant. The small shop is unassuming and the staff seem determined to keep it that way. Hidden beyond a pretty garden path, its ramshackle layout creates private spaces for slurping up some of the best ramen in the country. Made with soy milk, the menu is adaptable, with options to change spice, noodles, soup base, size and toppings. From ¥1,200 (£6.50).

Five food finds

1. Obanzai
Kyoto’s quintessential everyday meal usually includes vegetables, seafood and fu (gluten cakes). 

2. Gekkeikan Okura Sake
One of the oldest family-owned companies in the world — try its Horin and Junmai ‘Haiku’ sakes.

3. Shichimi Togarashi
An orange seven-spice mix including sesame, sansho pepper and chilli, made famous in Kyoto by 360-year-old manufacturer Shichimiya Honpo. 

4. Yudofu
Remarkably simple, fresh soybean blocks are heated in seaweed broth and dipped in ponzu or soy.

5. Kyoto Coffee Houses
Kyotoites drink more coffee than anyone else in Japan; try the city’s prolific cafe culture at independent coffee houses like Rokuyosha near Kyoto Shiyakusho-mae Station.