GION YAMAGISHI

Gion Yamagishi is the kind of place that doesn’t try to impress you—and that’s exactly why it does. There’s no menu. You sit at the counter, and the chef—precise, calm, and completely in command—serves you a kaiseki-style lunch rooted in seasonality and restraint. I was served grated mountain yam with firefly squid (surprisingly addictive), sweetfish and somen in cold broth, deep red bonito sashimi, grilled kamo eggplant at its seasonal peak, and a standout dish of white taro stem with sesame that caught me off guard with how delicious it was. Fried baby ayu—tiny, bitter, metallic—left a lasting impression. Even the green pea rice was memorable in its simplicity. Dessert? Warabi mochi with red bean and crunchy green peach seeds. Almond-like texture, subtly sweet. A beautiful way to end the meal. No theatrics, no flash, just confidence and craft. If you’re looking for Kyoto without the noise—this is it.

Gion Yamagishi was a highlight of our trip to Kyoto. The food was exquisite – every dish was a masterpiece of flavor and presentation. Chef Makoto Hinenoya was incredibly talented and kind, making the evening even more special. The restaurant is intimate and elegant, creating the perfect setting for a memorable kaiseki meal. Highly recommend!

I am writing this after my entire Japan trip was over and I have tried various other kaiseki including some big name Michelin star restaurants. This was my first Kaiseki in Japan. At the time I was too uneducated about kaiseki to really understand how good this was, but even then I wondered “wow are all kaiseki this creative and surprising?”well turns out… this restaurant stood out to me as the most memorable. After trying other restaurants now I know that many other more traditional kaiseki can be somewhat similar but here, the chef really put a creative spin on the food. I will just say what I can remember because sadly I don’t know the name of many dishes and don’t even know how to explain them. The chef grated Karasumi on top of a porridge/risotto like dish. It was so amazing because it reminded me of both Chinese congee and Mediterranean risotto, it had the best of both worlds with the seafood flavor but not the overt fishiness. I later found out that every other restaurant where I encountered karasumi just served it whole in its original salty bar form, which is like… I understand this is an expensive delicacy, but it is after all a cured item that some may find it jarring, so using it as a topping as if it’s Parmesan was pretty genius as it made the flavor so much easier to adjust to. I am now considering grating all kinds of cured food on top of porridge at home. The miso soup here was also so much smoother than all the miso soup I’ve ever had. I don’t know how, but it’s mysteriously good. It is important to note that the amount of food of this meal was surprisingly the biggest portion I’ve encountered throughout my entire Japan trip, I actually got too full that I couldn’t have more of their rice which I really wanted because even the rice was done in a much more creative way than most other restaurants. There was a bit of a very fragrant vegetable that that I cannot name, I don’t remember what else was in it but it contained other awesome ingredients and it wasn’t some kind of overly sauced salty rice. It was something perfect and between boring white rice and overly flavored rice. I feel like the food was very much flavored with natural ingredients.

Really do your research on kaiseki – traditional Japanese cuisine – before buying into the hype and getting the coveted reservation. A lot of underwhelming and jarring flavors to the less Japanese-familiar palate. Sea cucumber was a brutal bite of food but the miso soup was nice and the snapper was fine.

Delicious food. Noticed that two of our dishes did not include some items a Japanese couple got. We asked and was told “foreigners don’t like ayu-too many small bones and grilled salmon skin. I’v had both and love both. This scale of restaurant should not essentially decide what “I like” based on my ethnicity!!

Excellent Kaiseki. Everything tasted great, the service was very friendly and explained what's in every meal and recommendations for drink pairings.

We had the lunch course here today and I give it 10/10 - amazing experience. We were a little sceptical of the menu at first having never tasted some of the ingredients, such as sea urchin. We were mind blown by the flavours and there was nothing that we did not really enjoy. The chefs were so lovely and took lots of time to explain each dish, look up images and translations of ingredients for us and answer our questions. The room was also stunning and so zen. It was a real experience. Highly recommend.

It's a wonderful experience to have lunch here with a michelin chef. Everything was nice except the cool udon noodles with grill beef.