Chocolat BEL AMER Kyoto-Bettei - Sanjo store — Restaurant in Kyoto

Fancy!

Was looking for a dessert place in Kyoto and stumbled upon Bel Amer. It sells upscale specialty chocolates and has a cafe upstairs.

The chocolates looked amazing but I was worried about them not keeping further along my travels through hot Asia. But they would be amazing as gifts to take back to Canada. I wish they had one in North America.

We went to the cafe and had a green tea souffle and a green tea parfait. The souffle came with white chocolate ice cream and dark chocolate sauce which was amazing. The green tea parfait had mochi, azuki been and green tea jelly was really delicious and decadent. They had some really nice looking drinks but I find in Japan the drinks are quite pricey. There was a 40% discount if you bought a dessert which made It reasonable.

Service was friendly and efficient. A lovely cafe which I...

A group of 4 customers (young women, of course) talking WITHOUT MASKS. Kyoto just had a record number of confirmed corona cases and Delta strains going around, still the cafe allows these ppl to talk without masks. I was so worried about corona infection. Afternoon tea was NOT “good value for money.” I felt the food was sitting there for a long time. Poor choices of cake (only 3 types were available at that time, out of many). Taste was acceptable but I wanted to eat other cakes. Only 1 pot of tea (2 cups) or 1 cup of coffee. No scones. The only good thing was, it “looked” good. At four seasons hotel, I had unlimited tea and was able to drink all kinds of tea, plus high quality cake/savory food for ¥6750. So ¥5500 for afternoon tea at this small cafe...

I went here for the first time today, and absolutely loved it! Since my friends and I arrived around 11 AM, it wasn’t actually very crowded. And we had phenomenal service entire time. I never had to ask once for water. Instead, they constantly serves me more water every time I was close to finishing. I love that kind of service!

Also, the actual chocolate dessert that I ordered was absolutely delicious. Plus it had fantastic presentation. I hope I can come here many more times in the near future. It’s such a wonderful...