Itoh Dining — Restaurant in Kyoto

Avoid at All Costs – Especially if You Have Dietary Restrictions

We booked this restaurant well in advance and informed them very clearly that my husband has celiac disease. I explicitly stated he cannot eat gluten and that cross-contamination must be strictly avoided, asking if they could adapt their menu accordingly. They confirmed — but when we arrived, they had completely forgotten about it.

From the moment we walked in, we were made to feel like an inconvenience. They treated our dietary request as if it were a burden. To make things worse, we were seated next to another couple and asked to share the teppanyaki grill — the same grill where the other couple’s bread (full of gluten) was being cooked. We raised concerns about this, as celiac disease is not a preference but a serious autoimmune condition, and we were told they would “clean the grill properly.”

They didn’t.

They simply wiped it quickly and started cooking our food right after, completely disregarding the risk of contamination. At that point, we had no choice but to stop everything, ask for the bill, and leave without eating — to avoid ending the night in the hospital.

They charged us for the water we had and never even offered an apology.

This place markets itself as a luxury experience, but the service was careless, unprofessional, and shockingly irresponsible. It felt more like a tourist trap than a high-end restaurant. I absolutely do not recommend this place — especially if you have any kind of food allergy or...

Okay lets do this:

To begin with, we went to this restaurant with high hopes for a 5-star meal, and expectations for at least a 4-star meal. Which might be the issue - maybe we expected too much.

The welcoming and waiting was overall a little clumsy. Don’t get me wrong: everyone at the restaurant was very, very friendly and polite. Just clumsy. Like taking away one empty plate but not the other. Like choosing the spot right behind you to stand for few minutes and observe the dining room and tables. Like interrupting you to take your plate when you’ve already made sure they have access to it with having to interrupt. Like forgetting you’ve given them your jacket. And so on.

All that is of course not a huge deal really. As mentioned, the waiting staff were trying their best. But the courses. With the exception of the first ponzo/balsamico appetizer, all other courses before the main were average. Not terribly bad, but just very far from what you’d expect as appropriate for a wagyu main. A German-style common mushroom soup that had very ordinary flavor, an Italian dish of spaghettini with tomato and shrimp… and a homeless filet of overcooked fish resting on sliced aubergine (Greek?).

Then came the wagyu meat itself. That was good. Which gives the 3 stars. Having said that, I still don’t get why the restaurant would choose to not mention anywhere visibly (certainly not on the menu) what grade of meat we were getting.

Overall, the meat was good but you can probably find a better course...

This is what we picked to experience Kobe here in Kyoto and the service was embarrassing and the meat was unexciting.

First we were greeted for our 6pm reservation with one of the employees trying to make sure we couldn’t walk in before he verified we had a reservation. There was only one other couple present and when we left there was plenty of room for several other 4 tops.

I personally never had my water filled and they never came back to refill the other 3 guests. They also never came back to remove our hand cleansing towels, they just sat on the table for the whole evening. Anytime we needed something we had to ask. The only two servers / food preppers sneezed more than once into their hands while handling food prep and their pen without washing them or even trying to sneeze into anything other than their unprotected hands, and this was just 10 feet away from all the occupied tables in the open.

I had the Kobe Beef Premium which was tender but lacked any pop or memorabilia. The other three had the alacarte 100g Kobe Beef steaks as well and thought the same thing. One of the meats was partially sitting in the sauce which should never be the case for a high quality piece of meat. We had better tasting Kobe in the street food area on skewers earlier in the day which should have been much lower grade.

This is just nit picking but they sat the only two people at the chef’s counter right next to the only toilet in the building, which is just...