Il fera jour" is a French restaurant opened by Mr. and Mrs. Yamamoto, who have experience training in various parts of Japan as well as in France, the home of French cuisine. The restaurant is gaining recognition as a "familiar French restaurant" because of its reasonably priced Western-style lunches such as Omi beef curry and beef stroganoff (980 yen and up). The restaurant's motto is that everything is handmade, from seasonal vegetables grown on the restaurant's own farm to precious honey, ice cream, and bread kneaded with vegetables. The omakase course at night is a 10-course meal for only 5,000 yen, making it a hidden gem that you will want to tell someone you care about.

The chef's wife, Asako, greeted us with a smile as bright as the sun. Asako has extensive experience as a pastry chef in restaurants, and she is in charge of desserts for the courses.

On the second floor of a building on the Shinkyogoku Rokkaku corner of Shinkyogoku Street, the busy Shinkyogoku Street is filled with people, but once you enter the restaurant, the busyness of daily life seems to fade away, and a calm and peaceful atmosphere prevails.

The table is equipped with a drawer, which is a surprising device for storing cutlery. Chopsticks are also provided, so beginners who are not familiar with forks and knives can use them with ease.

Chef Nobuyuki Yamamoto trained at the Osaka Fujiya Hotel in Osaka, the Suimeikan Baden-Baden European-style restaurant in Gero Onsen, Gifu, and La Grand Thable de Kitamura in Nagoya before establishing his own restaurant.

［An indispensable part of il fera jour is the fresh vegetables that are harvested every morning at the family farm and delivered on the same day. Asako's father takes care of his vegetables in a field in Shino-machi, Kameoka City, a 30-minute drive from Kyoto City. There, she saw a wide variety of vegetables!　From Kyoto's traditional vegetables such as mibuna, mizuna, kujo leeks, and Fushimi peppers, to Western vegetables such as Swiss chard, mekabetsu, and broccoli, which are essential for French cuisine, the family continues to grow vegetables that are in tune with the seasons. They have two fields, one of which grows Japanese parsley, watercress, and leaf wasabi, using water coming from the valley.

The charm of a private farm is not only the ability to produce many varieties in small quantities, but also to harvest them in the size you want to use for cooking. For example, for a single green onion, young and thin green onions can be used as an appetizer or in soups; in winter, enjoy the thickening of the inside on the grill; and crispy fried buds, called "leek-bojos," can be used in spring dishes. Asako's father, who keeps the garden, says, "Because we use vegetables from our own farm, we are able to maximize the potential of the vegetables and offer a variety of expressions."

His father has experience as a sushi chef and is an expert in all aspects of cooking. He started the family farm with the idea of "growing our own food," and he is constantly growing about 20 varieties of vegetables.

On the morning of the day of the interview, a wide variety of vegetables were on display, as you can see from just what was harvested that day. The taro with its fine, long stalks and the tender leaves of mibuna (Brassica campestris var. mibuensis)...... make you realize that freshly harvested vegetables are a precious blessing from nature.

His father's work is not limited to the fields. He is also a beekeeper, and all the honey used at "il fera jour" is homemade. The pure sweetness of the honey collected from the mountains by the Japanese honeybee is a moving experience.

The chef's method is not to gather ingredients for each dish, but rather to find the best cooking method in front of the harvested ingredients, so the course content is usually decided on the same day. The vegetables that change little by little each day, such as Kamo eggplant and Manganji peppercorns in summer, and leafy greens such as Mibuna and Chrysanthemum greens as well as root vegetables such as radish in winter when the weather is chilly, convey the "present" of Kyoto. In the dinner course, Kyoto honey from the hive, homemade smoked and fermented foods, seafood from a fisherman in Oki Island, Shimane Prefecture, and other ingredients that show the producer's face appear one after another.

The evening omakase course of 5,000 yen includes amuse, 2 appetizers, soup, risotto, fish dish, ice cream, meat dish, dessert, small pastries & coffee, for a total of 10 dishes. Reservations are required until the day before and the menu starts at 6:00 p.m.

The first to appear was a miniature piroshki with a very cute visual. Omi beef and cream cheese flavored with curry appear from inside. A slightly larger to-go size is also available.

One of the two appetizers of the day was taro dauphinois (gratin). The heshiko and smoked trout salmon were also made by the father.

After the soup is the popular risotto. Glutinous barley is the main ingredient, with plenty of vegetables such as mukago, edamame (green soybeans), and baby leaves. The chicken broth and cheese combine to give the risotto its whip and crunchy texture.

Even bouillabaisse becomes a work of art in Chef Yamamoto's hands. Floating in a rich seafood broth is a yuzu-marinated kochi fish wrapped around a flounder and topped with hollandaise sauce and baked.

Steak made from the meat of Omi beef. The slightly sweet and sour yamamomo sauce enhances the flavor of the Wagyu beef. Omi beef curry on a rice flour tart was served as a finishing dish.

His wife Asako is in charge of the closing dessert. Mille-feuille made with seasonal ingredients. The ingredient of the day was chestnuts, which were picked up one by one, carefully peeled, and boiled in sweetened soy sauce. The combination of warm pie crust and cold vanilla ice cream is also exquisite.

Blancmange appears in the 8,000 yen course. It is filled with honey collected from the honeycomb. You can also add honey afterwards if you like. The flavor of the honey changes with the seasons, such as plum honey in spring and camellia honey in winter.

The dinner course at il fera jour was a relaxing experience, as if we had been invited to the Yamamoto family's home and were given a special portion of their food. Each dish had a story behind it, as the ingredients used were from the family's farm, such as "This ingredient was grown by my father on his farm" or "This fish came from Tottori. Thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Yamamoto's friendly family, a French meal that should have been nerve-wracking became as casual as a café. Word of mouth has led to word of mouth, and Il Fera Jour is gaining popularity, with customers saying, "Now I'm going to introduce this restaurant to someone else. Once you visit il fera jour, you will surely be charmed by its particular taste and cheerful personality!