Kobe Beef Steak Restaurant Royal Mouriya — Restaurant in Kobe

If you’re a fan of beef and visiting Japan, a trip to Kobe is a must for an authentic Kobe beef experience. Among the many restaurants in the city, Hotel Royal Mouriya stands out—especially for first-timers. Not only do you get to savor premium Kobe beef, but the staff also educates you on the best way to enjoy it.

Yes, it’s pricey—I paid around $400 USD for their top-tier offering—but this included their finest cut, which came with a certificate of authenticity and even the cow’s history. More affordable options are available, too. For the best experience, sit at the counter, where the chefs cook in front of you and guide you through the meal. For groups of up to three, the counter is ideal; larger groups can opt for tables.

The staff and chefs speak excellent English and are happy to answer all your questions before you choose your meat. My chef, Kajimoto Koki, was a consummate professional and made the whole experience truly memorable. He guided me through each course, ensuring I enjoyed the meal to the fullest.

The meal began with a rich beef consommé, followed by a fresh green salad with sesame dressing. Next, the chef displayed the vegetables to be grilled—eggplant, lotus root, green beans, bean sprouts, and shiitake mushrooms. Since I’m not a fan of eggplant and lotus root, Chef Koki kindly substituted them with onion and tofu.

Your chosen raw steak is presented with a certificate and detailed information about the cow. The chef will also ask your preferred doneness—I recommend medium rare for the best flavor and texture. Kobe beef is considered the pinnacle of Wagyu, with strict regulations for certification. Only castrated males or female cows are used to ensure tender meat with rich marbling.

The steak is cut into small portions and cooked gradually, so each bite is served at the perfect temperature. The chef serves each piece on a plate with salt, cracked pepper, wasabi, and garlic chips, guiding you on how to enjoy them. Start with salt, then combine it with wasabi, and finally add garlic chips or pepper. Avoid dipping the steak into the miso or vinegar sauces—those are for the vegetables.

The chef grills the vegetables alongside the meat and serves them one by one. You’re also offered rice, with an option to upgrade to garlic rice, accompanied by daikon and another pickled vegetable. Toward the end, beef scraps, especially the fatty parts, are stir-fried with bean sprouts and served as a delicious final savory bite.

To finish, tea or coffee is offered. Impressively, the griddle is cleaned only with oil and a scrubber—no chemicals—to preserve the purity of the beef’s flavor, much like using a mother-of-pearl spoon for caviar.

Overall, this was a once-in-a-lifetime culinary experience. If you can, request Chef Koki—he’s an absolute delight. Thank you to the entire team at Royal Mouriya for an unforgettable...

BEWARE! - Fairly sure it wasn't Kobe beef..

Don't know where all the other reviews are coming from, but it's likely, that people going for a brand new experience, don't really know what to expect and compared to regular prime Black Angus, yes it's better, but that's not what we're paying for here.

One rule when ordering Kobe beef, you should always expect to be shown the beef and the certificate, which makes it Kobe beef, at least in Japan. And remember: if it's not A5, it can't be Kobe.

We went for a dinner (3 people & paid over 500€ for it (65000¥ + tax)) and ordered the Finest/Prime/Premium Kobe beef set menu. (1-st red flag: The beef quality is stated differently everywhere: Online it's "Finest Kobe beef", at the door, it's Premium/Prime Kobe beef, in the actual menu you're handed, it's "Choice Kobe beef" where choice is actually inferior to prime, but here costs more..

We were never really shown the beef the cut's served to us came from, not the certificates proving it's authentic Kobe, but appearance alone, it had lower marbling score than regular prime Wagyu, which we had a day earlier in Tokyo, which was amazing, and before that just recently had Matsusaka beef, which was even more mind-blowingly amazing.

Anyhow, the most expensive "Best quality Kobe beef money can buy" that I expected to melt in my mouth and be even juicier and more flavorful than the regular Wagyu I had for comparison just the day before - ended up being just greasy from the vegetable oil it was fried and soaked in, with barely any decent sear on the beef and yet it was tough and much much chewier - no melt in your mouth sensation what so ever. And it was dry. Far inferior to the regular prime Wagyu from the day before.

The beef did have a vague Wagyu taste, so in conclusion my guess is, that the beef actually cooked could be regular choice cut Wagyu at best - sold as Prime Kobe..

There were many other issues as well, that I'm willing to over look, but this one described here I can not ignore.

My ratings of restaurants are based on how I feel about the meal experience after a dinner course, I can spend 2000€ for a meal and still be satisfied with it and not think about the money spent, or like in this situation, be completely dissatisfied with the experience, feel deceived and underwhelmed by everything and definitely as if we WAAAY over paid..

(Beef looks way more marbled in the photo than in reality and unfortunately you can not photograph toughness of the meat and underwhelming...

An absolute standout experience, most of which was due to the amazing professional staff.

We made a reservation in advance, though due to a combination of really bad weather, google maps going haywire (for some reason google maps seems to really struggle in Kobe? Not sure why), and the fact that they have multiple different locations around the city.. it unfortunately left us confused and lost for 40 minutes before we finally arrived late to the correct spot.

FYI, if you are looking for this specific location (there are at least two others in the same street), then look for the "Ikuta Road" archway and then find the Ichiran Ramen on this street. In the same building at the Ichiran Ramen is an elevator that will take you up to the restaurant.

We are extremely grateful to the staff and team for being able to seat us despite being 40 minutes late (especially as they were turning people away who did not have reservations due to already being fully booked). We had travelled 3 hours from Fukuoka in order to come here, so if we missed out due to the unfortunate series of events that caused us to be late it would have been devastating. Thank you so very much!

Once we finally were able to be seated, the amazing hospitality only continued from there. The chef serving us at the grill was able to talk to us in English and explain what everything was. They also offered to take photos of us holding a board of the Kobe Beef before it was cooked.

We wanted to try a couple different cuts of meat between the two of us, and the chef was happy for us to share from each other's sets. We ended up ordering 150g of the Mouriya Ribeye (great value at only 8,400 yen) and 130g of the Premium Kobe beef sirloin. The Kobe Beef was much more expensive at 17,170 yen. If I were to come again I'd just go for the Mouriya cut as it was equally as good, but if you're only coming to Kobe once then you have to try the Kobe cut for the experience.

The sets come with soup, vegetable salad, grilled vegetables including mushrooms and lotus root, bread or rice, and coffee or tea to finish. The highlight of course is the beef, which tastes about as you would expect if you've had wagyu before. Rich, fatty and melty.

It's easy to book a reservation on the website; hopefully you don't get lost trying to find the restaurant like we did. I'd highly recommend making a booking to avoid disappointment - as mentioned earlier we saw multiple groups get turned away for not having a...