[2024] 6 Shops Open on New Year's Day, Kyoto
One of the best places to visit in Kyoto is the so-called "Kyoto obanzai" restaurants, where you can enjoy the taste of home and traditional cuisine. Each restaurant has its own specialties and innovations, such as using seasonal vegetables and carefully prepared soup stock.
In this issue, we feature 8 obanzai restaurants in Kyoto recommended by our local editors! You are sure to find the perfect restaurant for you.
(TEXT: Eiko Itakura, Yurie Sano, Yumi Matsumura, EDIT: Kanako Horike)
Shunsai Imari (Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture), located in the Karasuma-Oike area, offers Japanese set meals only in the morning. The menu features a variety of Japanese dishes paired with freshly cooked rice in an earthenware pot. In addition to Kyoto-style side dishes such as saikyo-yaki fish, dashimaki rolls, and daily obanzai using seasonal ingredients, you can also enjoy plenty of vegetables such as Japanese salad and nukazuke pickles.
In the evening, you can enjoy the luxury of local sake and shochu with obanzai lined up at the counter.
Located north of Shijo-Magayacho, Kyo-Na Ajino Murasaki Nishiki Branch (Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture) offers vegetable-based Kyoto-style obanzai in a relaxing atmosphere that combines Japanese and Western styles. In addition to the signature yuba, the restaurant also offers a daily changing selection of obanzai, including the Asa Masa Gozen and the soft cheese yuba bowl. You can also order yuba-don toppings to enjoy at home.
[At Ushinohone Anaza (Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto), the second branch of the Ushinohone group, which has been well-loved since its establishment in Karasuma Oike in 1993, diners can enjoy obanzai dishes centered on Kyoto vegetables and charcoal-grilled dishes cooked over bincho charcoal. The interior of the restaurant, which is a reconstruction of a historic machiya (townhouse) built in the Taisho era (1912-1926) and over 100 years old, is full of Japanese style with impressive thick beams. On the first floor, with its high ceiling and open space, there are kotatsu (table placed over a sunken table) and counter seats, and on the second floor, there is a space like an attic where you can relax in a tatami room.
Kamigamo Kirin (Kita-ku, Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture) is a buffet-style restaurant where you can enjoy a variety of obanzai dishes centering on vegetables from Kamigamo and incorporating many ingredients from Ohara and Miyama. The owner, who is a certified vegetable sommelier, offers a variety of dishes from seasonal vegetables depending on the day. The restaurant also offers a wide variety of dishes served on cute bean plates and other dishes, allowing customers to enjoy the time they spend preparing their dishes as they wish. Inside the restaurant, customers sit around a large table and engage in lively conversation with each other. In addition to the buffet lunch, the take-out Kamigamo bento and daily rice ball bento are also popular.
[The most popular menu at Obanzai Izakaya Aikaiho (Minami-ku, Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture) is surrounded by the owner's homemade obanzai (side dishes) such as ponkara and grilled fish. Not only are there four daily specials, including bitter gourd with salted kelp, vinegared kiriboshi-daikon, hijiki and green soybean salad, and bamboo shoots with okaka seaweed, but all obanzai and rice dishes are free refills, making the restaurant well known for its value, and it is packed with hungry people around midnight. In the evening, the restaurant is open for izakaya (Japanese style pubs), where you can enjoy not only obanzai, but also a wide variety of blackboard menus and locally brewed sake.
When you open the door of the Kyoto machiya, a unique world unfolds with vintage clocks, record jackets, and photographer's photos. This popular restaurant offers a wide selection of Japanese sake, and serves obanzai, a dish made with Kyoto ingredients and Western vegetables that goes well with sake. The first floor seats guests at the counter and tables with sunken kotatsu-style tables, while the second floor seats guests on tatami matted flooring for a relaxing atmosphere.
The proprietress opened Seasonal Cuisine and Obanzai Suzu (Shimogyo-ku, Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture) about 20 years ago as a restaurant where customers could enjoy obanzai. Her son, Kyosho, who grew up watching his mother's back and naturally became a chef, now joins her in the kitchen and together they run the restaurant. Lined up at the counter are large bowls of freshly prepared colorful obanzai. Many of the dishes are made with seasonal Kyoto ingredients such as Kamo eggplants, Manganji peppercorns, and Kujo leeks, and change daily, making for a rich selection of about 60 dishes in all.
Now in its eighth year, Kyo-machiya Obanzai Kobaku is a popular izakaya (Japanese style bar) that is crowded with regular customers and tourists every day. If you are unsure of what to order from the extensive menu, we recommend ordering 3 or 5 kinds of obanzai. The contents change daily, and dishes using seasonal Kyoto vegetables such as Manganji peppercorns and Kujo leeks are available. The dishes are prepared with Udeno's additive-free, high-quality broth, which is a special order of Rishiri kelp and Makurazaki-grown dried bonito flakes in the restaurant's proprietary blend. You can feel the flavor of the broth, which is indispensable for obanzai.
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