L'aparté — Restaurant in Kyoto

L’Aparté came highly recommended by a friend, and it truly exceeded our expectations.

Chef Anthony's constantly evolving eight-course menu offers an intimate and perfectly balanced gastronomic journey. Despite a résumé that could easily grant him access to the finest establishments, he chose to open this small, almost secretive estaminet with his wife. Here, he delights just ten fortunate guests with an exquisite Omakase-style experience, blending the best of French cuisine with subtle Japanese influences.

Chef Anthony demonstrates an impressive ability to innovate while elevating classic dishes. His menu is both creative and thoughtfully balanced, without ever crossing into pretentious. Each course is paired with simple, yet carefully chosen wines that he has selected with passion.

If you're dining as a party of three or fewer, I recommend sitting at the bar. There, you can enjoy the fascinating process of watching Chef Anthony and his Sous Chef meticulously prepare each course, served directly from the kitchen along with mouth-watering descriptions of every dish.

We wish Chef Anthony much success in this unique...

We booked this restaurant as it was around the corner from our hotel and we were attracted by a “fine dining French cuisine”.

The meal started off really promising, we loved the first 3 courses of cheese pastry, sea urchin and the encroute. Both fish dishes were a miss for us. The firefly squid and pasta was lost with too much kale, (maybe some crispy kale would have been better instead to add texture and not overpower the dish). The mackerel dish was just too sweet with caramel miso and a very sweet carrot side dish. I would lose the caramel and carrot and just stick with the carrot purée part which was delicious. The next course, the duck, was lovely but, in our opinion, did not need the quiche side dish. The quiche itself was very well executed with perfect pastry but seemed a little sweet for our tastes. The deserts were good but confused about the purpose of the tomato skin as it did not add anything to the pineapple sorbet dish. Another disappointment was our coffee at the end of the meal was served barely warm. The wine choice was excellent, even by the glass.

Overall the meal had promise but did not...

Highly recommended! An exquisite find on a quiet street in south central Kyoto near Nishi Hogan-ji. Accomplished French chef, Anthony, and his wife and charming assistant Shouta, prepared a delicious and beautifully presented multi-course dinner for us. The menu is unique and thoughtfully crafted, even with clever names for each course. The room is comfortable and recently renovated. Each course was composed with care using high quality local ingredients and served on beautiful Japanese ceramic dishes. The chef is very friendly and multilingual, Japanese, French and English. After working 12+ years with the world-famous chef and restaurateur Alain Ducasse, he created his own lovely restaurant. While it is French and not Japanese food, it’s extremely well-executed and infused with the cultural essence of Kyoto and Japanese style. There is an excellent selection of wines available to accompany the food. The beef course was one of my favorite meat dishes ever, flavorful and delicate. There are many great restaurants around Kyoto and this is one of the best....