Michelin Star Restaurant in Kyoto: Jiki Miyazawa
Today I would like to talk to you about a very special One Star Michelin Restaurant we tried in Kyoto: Jiki Miyazawa. Kyoto is famous worldwide for the quality of many of its restaurants, specially those serving Traditional Japanese Kaiseki food. This day I was pretty exited because it was my birthday and my boyfriend had booked a special restaurant for us, though I did not know which one. Knowing that Kyoto food standards are quite high, my expectations were rising along the trip until the day came. It fulfilled all my hopes and more! Let me tell you about it:
The entrance to Jiki Miyazawa
Walking around the streets of Kyoto is already pretty special, specially at night. The combination of traditional Ryokans & Minshukus, little restaurants and the more modern buildings, create a unique atmosphere. The day we came here was Halloween, which is starting to become an extended celebration in the big cities of Japan, so you could feel a special feeling in town.
Also, Japanese love autumn (just like me) and there are many festivals and seasonal specialties during this period. Therefore, it is a good time of the year to go to a good restaurant serving local fresh food.
The entrance is located in a small street, beautifully decorated with lanterns and a small Japanese garden, giving you the feeling that you are going to have a special moment.
Traditional Kaiseki Food
Kaiseki Food is a traditional refined Japanese meal, composed of several little dishes. It is considered a culinary art, where the combination of taste, smell, appearance, colors and texture is carefully designed. Only fresh and normally local ingredients are used and every detail is taken care of, even the plates that are used for serving.
A visual experience
At Jiki Miyazawa you seat at the counter, as in many other traditional Japanese restaurants. There are about 10 seats in total. I loved this seating format, because you get to see the chefs working the ellaborated dishes up close.
It was quite impressive to see the way they build each dish carefully, mastering each movement and each cut.
You are assigned a single chef for the entire dinner and ours was really friendly. We got to chat quite a lot with him about Japanese traditions around food, and he recommended us some delicious sakes along the dinner according to our tastes.
Here you can see the different sakes we had along the diner. I personally like the smooth floral ones that remind of white wine, whereas my boyfriend likes the sakes that are a bit stronger. They perfectly catched our tastes and we both loved the sakes we got. The most special one was a non-filtered sake, the last one on the photos, which had quite a strong yeast-like smell, but tasted completely different.
As we mentioned, Kaiseki food consists on many small dished of local and fresh food. There were nine dishes in total plus a dessert. Even if the dishes are small, you do not leave the restaurant hungry. The combination of flavours and textures was simply delicious, and you could feel that the ingredients were of excellent quality.
We started with a kind of gelly soupe with Japanese mushrooms and spinach, followed by wrapped monkfish in a broth with Japanese flowers. After this, we had swordfish, which had a delicate flavor, accompanied by freshly grated wasabi. I can tell you that I do not usually like wasabi, until I tried this one, it had nothing to do with the wasabi I had tried before!
The last of seafood dishes was Bonito sashimi. Bonito del Norte is a type of fish that is very common in my home region, the Basque Country, and you do not typically find it outside. It is a blue fish which reminds of tuna, but I personally prefer the first one. I found it quite funny that Japanese are very fond of Bonito, and to find it in this particular restaurant.
A magic mixture of textures and flavour
The following dish left me speachless. It was roasted tofu on top of a bed of smashed sesame seeds. The exterior was crunchy and the inside was fondant, reminding of roasted Camembert. The heart of the tofu was hot and combined perfectly with the sesame.
I never thought tofu could taste so good!
This was followed by a Japanese risotto with seasonal mushrooms and miso crackers, which were very tasteful. Then we were served a fine Tempura, which you find everywhere in Japan, but the particularity here is that it was made of grapes, edamame and mushrooms. The combination between the juice inside the grapes and the crunchy exterior made it a very special mix.
After this we had a variety of Japanese mushrooms that were delicious, accompanied by Ginkgo nuts, which were on my list of things to try during the trip. It is a very special flavor, not for everybody, but I recommend trying it if you go to Japan, at least for the experience. Be careful! They contain a toxic component and an adult should not be eating more than a few of them.
Finally, as it could not be otherwise during a traditional Japanese dinner, the last dish before the dessert was a Miso soup with fermented vegetables and rice. Even if Miso soup is very common in Japan, when it is done with top quality ingredients like this one, you can really feel the difference. Same for the rice: they told us that it was a special type of rice, Shinmai, which is a ‘young’ rice that is harvested at the very beginning of the season, giving it a rich flavor and a sticky texture.
And finally, of course, the dinner ended up with the dessert and a cup of hot tea. As dessert, we were served a homemade Japanese milk pudding. The texture was incredible! The taste was flavory and not too sugary, so I enjoyed it very much. It was accompanied by a cup of top quality Hojicha tea, a type of roasted green tea very popular at night in Japan, since it has low levels of theine.
If you were convinced by the review, do not hesitate to go visit this amazing restaurant!
Here is the location ;)
Written by Marta - The Cherry Pickers
