Yosuke Yamaji

Superb dining experience. Calm and peaceful atmosphere with lots of sunlight. Excellent selection of veggie and fish. And i love the "carbonara". Wine list is comprehensive, pairing offered is of good variety and good value. Pleasant!

Excellent French cuisine in Gion. Creative, well- planned menu and perfectly calibrated ingredients with nice ambience. One of the best menus of the year. Would be 5 stars if the chef/owner was more pleasant considering it was an open kitchen and he had his back to us the entire time. No smile, no hello, no thank you, or anything. All other staff were very attentive and much nicer. Drink menu is great, but tap water is horrible.

Mother’s Day lunch in 2018 was a lovely, warm dining experience. The service is classy, the presentation is aesthetic, and the flavors are simple, yet deep. We will return as soon as this pandemic is over.

We had a great time here, wine list was out of this world and food tasted great. Every dish was well prepared. Will definitely come again.

Had a very pleasant anniversary lunch here, food and service were amazing. Overall a 10/10 dining experience :)

This is my mom and my second visit to Kyoto in about 15 years. I wanted to have a lovely and special time at a nice, sophisticated restaurant. After reading so many reviews and many hours of research, I chose chef Yamaji’s namesake restaurant in Gion district. And I am very happy that our lunch was superb cross the board: food, service and atmosphere. In keeping with Gion’s enduring and unwavering effort to maintain its old charm, the restaurant may not be perceived as a French restaurant from outside, but my kind taxi driver knocked on its front door and verified it was the French restaurant we were going. We had lunch with four glasses of Bordeaux wine (, which has become one of my fav red wines). I absolutely believe that this restaurant deserves star status by Michelin. What we experienced today was absolutely amazing: creative dishes from the first to the end all served by attentive, kind and professional staff and sommelier. We sat at the counter, so we enjoyed the pleasure of watching the action of Chef Yamaji and his crew cooking and plating each dish on gorgeous plates. We loved the harmony and synergy among the high quality ingredients from diverse areas of Japan and the explanations of dishes and how to enjoy them best were well communicated too. The pace was pleasant and well sequenced. We loved his use of fresh and flavorful fruits, especially because it was nice that they add such a wonderful layer to the taste with its cold temperature and fresh juice. The octopus was so tender, and the squid carbonara was brilliant, so creative. White fish caught near Awaji island topped with grilled cauliflower and pork dish were very tasty. ( although my mom was not a big fan of pork in general, so I finished hers, she was pleased with the whole meal and the service 😊). As we were leaving , we thanked the team and the chef and staff expressed gratitude so kindly and humbly. This lunch was one of those ones that you can’t wait to rave about it. My family will absolutely come back to try his other courses.

The food was good, but I was shocked when I saw the chef “double dip” the spoon in the pan to check the sauce again.

Very nice location. Service team makes you feel comfortable and explained well the dishes. Very nice dishwares. Food is interesting but it misses a purpose and I would say in every dish one extra ingredient which brings confusion. Despite a lot of work put by the team.

Bright, airy Kyoto machiya-style house that was renovated in 2015 to house this restaurant. The chef and his all-male team wore pleasant expressions, and the service was excellent. The chef graduated from Paul Bocuse culinary academy and further refined his skills in the kitchens of Joël Robuchon and Alain Ducasse in Paris and Tokyo. Lunch is 5000 yen and consisted of 5 courses + dessert. All of the courses were aesthetically pleasing and equally delicious, though the fish dish was slightly over salted. Even the breads are baked on site and served piping hot out of the oven. At the very end of the meal, we were each given a ridiculously delicious financier just out of the oven. A fitting end to a lovely meal. Highly recommended.