Shinmonzen Yonemura — Restaurant in Kyoto

A small omakase service with one seating a time. The bar sits right in front of the kitchen; unlike many counter service experiences, there are no staff lurking behind you to address your needs. Everything, and everyone, is in front of you, cooking, playing, pouring drinks, cleaning dishes. It’s a team affair, run by Mr. Yomemura himself, calmly leading his team through each course, subtlety watching the processes and experiences of each guest.

There’s a formality to the restaurant, of course, living up to a 2 Michelins star standard, but there also underlays a casualness: pastel cat and dog electric outlet plugs, staff winks and chuckles to each other, Yonemura’s worn blue jeans. The clientele in turn takes up the vibe, in an appreciative, high taste, yet relaxed posture. Drinks are free flowing through a well-curated wine list, and nobody once gets up, not even to use the bathroom, in fear of missing a dish (not that we’d be skewered if we did need to relieve ourselves).

As for the dishes themselves, perhaps a bit reserved for a 2 star expectation, but as generous for the price point as any highly rated menu. Wagyu, uni, turtle, fresh Italian black truffle, freely flowing alongside succulent Kyoto produce at an impressively low price point for the ingredients. This is ostensibly French-Japanese fusion, but with Italian and even New World influences. A razor clam gratin has a surprise of fusilli pasta transitioning into a mac-and-cheese. A tartare is created with avocado that somehow becomes a singular flavor with the Uni topping. A squid ink risotto gets topped with a quail egg emulsion. It’s as open to world cuisine as you can get while still sourcing the meat and seafood from an exclusively Japanese tableau.

Highlights are the fresh tomato with scallop, dueling wagyu “pies,” turtle soup broth, and passion fruit sorbet. Every dish makes sense, even when simple, nothing sacrificed in terms of freshness or unwanted experimentation. Yonemura brings decades of experience into a Gion charm, providing a taste from the heart to locals and foreigners alike.

At the end of the service, it began to rain. I joked to my wife that maybe the restaurant would have some umbrellas to take home since we did not bring any. Nearly second layer, Yonemura walked out with a handful of umbrellas. When we left, it had stopped, but he had to come outside to check for himself that we would not need one of his protectors. The kind of genuine care that you can’t fake, that earns you...

The entrée tasted weird. The tartare overpowered the uni, and the brownie overpowered the caviar. The eel and jelly was the only okay dish. The soup didn't pair well with green tea ice cream. We thought they wanted to covered the fishiness of the lobster, it turned out the lobster was very sweet and fresh... The lobster was wasted. The scallop in cream source was bad. The cream tasted like Saizeriya cream pasta sauce, and the truffle overpowered everything. We picked the sauce and truffle away and the scallops tasted very fresh. What a waste of good ingredients. The fried fish was very bitter... So bitter that I couldn't swallow it. The corn risotto looked like rice with corn in an university canteen, and the sauce on the rice was Peking duck sauce... The wagyu beef itself was high-grade, but it should not be paired with tempura and corn rice and Peking duck sauce. The risotto was not really risotto, but steam rice with too much water. At this point of the meal, we highly doubted if the chef can cook at all. The Japanese sea eel was a normal dish and this dish was the expected level of restaurants of this price range. The soup tasted weird again. There's sand in the mushroom. The soup texture was slimy and tasted ok. The fish was fresh and tasty though. It's a waste of good fish. The next dish was eel on pasta in cream sauce. It was ok. The mayonnaise dish was disappointing. The main dish was wagyu beef. One beef tasted excellent, the other one smelled bad and made me gagged. Not sure why a piece of grilled beef could smell so bad... The dessert combo was average. Not something I would had paid for at this price range, but at least I didn't gag when I ate them. My companion ate a few bites and thought the calories wasn't worth it. Other customers seemed to be satisfied with this restaurant. I guess they came for the service since the waiters and waitress were very polite, but I wouldn't pay over 60000yen for...

It was a very nice experience to try Yonemura-san's cuisine, which showed impressive creativity and a good range of ingredients. Not all the combinations worked for me (lobster does not need to be in jelly) but many of them were very nice.

I was especially impressed with the selection of desserts served at the end, in the form of a box which contains about seven or eight individual bites (probably the strongest dessert course I had in my trip to Japan). Other restaurants could learn from this.

The service was friendly and efficient, and the whole meal was very good value (for a glass of wine, a glass of plum wine, and a tasting menu with at least eight courses), at around ¥16,000 for lunch.

The only reason I give it 4/5 instead of 5 is because of a few dishes that didn't work for me...why is the pasta served cold? And parts of the menu needed more seasoning. It should also be noted, for English-speakers, that the 'hamburg steak' is a small hamburger; order the roasted wagyu, which looked far more appealing.

Still, it was an enjoyable experience and good...