VELROSIER — Restaurant in Kyoto

The interior of this creative Chinese restaurant is dark, warm, and inviting. With only 5 tables, the space is incredibly intimate. And there are only 5 staff total, including the chefs, making it an impressively efficient operation.

My dinner here was wonderful. Buckle up, because dinner here is a 3 hour affair. There were a couple dishes that were rather average, and I hugely protest with their shark fin soup course. But overall, I appreciated the rich flavors and inventiveness of the menu. I'd highly recommend this restaurant if you're looking for a creative break from traditional Japanese cuisine while in Kyoto.

The price of the prix fixe menu was 21,780 JPY, or about $170 USD. The wine pairing was an additional 12,100 JPY, or about $95 USD.

The menu was:

1. Chinese style chicken consomme served in a burgundy wine glass. Why? I'm not sure. Was it necessary? Not really. Was it good? Meh. Like drinking a well prepared chicken broth.

2. Sweet shrimp in a kelp puree topped with egg powder. This dish was good but not great. Hearty flavors. I wish it had been served warm. Instead, it was served chilled.

3. Sweet potato croquette breaded with sweet potato cookie crumbs and topped with caviar. This dish was solid.

4. Chinese sausage made with Kyoto pork, on a bacon cracker and topped with sesame and mustard sauce. This one was super yummy The pork was so tender and full of flavor. The mustard added some wonderful heat.

5. Foie gras and jam in wafer-thin Japanese rice cracker. The presentation for this dish was incredible. The cracker was surrounded by roses and sat on a bed of aromatic cloves. The dish itself was inventive and reasonably yummy

6. Dumpling deconstructed - Fried gyoza wrapper on leek puree and ground pork, topped with powdered asparagus. This dish was divine.

7. Yellow tail fish layered with daikon radish, rolled into a Chinese pancake. This dish was so meaty and savory, despite being seafood

8. Spanish mackerel with Chinese XO sauce, Japanese radish, chicken soup cracker, and foam. Delicious

9. Chinese mantou bread

10. Shark fin soup with Napa cabbage and a crab broth, topped with puffed rice. This dish made me incredibly sad. Shark fin soup, really?? In this day and age? Come on, we can be better than that. In protest, I didn't eat the shark fin.

11. Waygu filet with roasted brussel sprout, beef and cabbage pie, and black pepper sauce with potato puree and pistachio powder. This dish was so incredibly rich

12. Chinese rice wine sweet pudding recipe with caramelized orange. Super bitter, not a fan

13. Almond jello ice cream with chocolate macaroon, wafer cracker, champagne truffle, and chocolate. Solid dessert

14. Coconut sweet ball

15. Black sesame ball

Wine pairing:

1. Champagne

2. Georg Breuer Rheingau Riesling 2020

3. Weszeli Purus 2017

4. Spanish Alejairén Crianza 2020

5. Patricius Tokaj 2017 sweet wine

6. German Friedrich Becker Petit Rosé 2020

7. Angelica Zapata Cabernet Franc 2016

8. Malvirà Rodeo Arneis 2014

9. 15-year old Chinese rice wine

10. Iced Oolong tea

11. Silkwood Syrah 2018

12. Maxwell spiced mead, made with Australian honey

13. Hot tea served in a Tiffany & Co cup. Why advertize for Tiffany? I have no idea. The tea was incredible though. I felt like I was...

Let’s begin with the sommelier having a terrible cough. He openly coughed on all the dishes the whole evening. Never covered his mouth. Never wore a mask. He coughed in the dining room and the kitchen for three hours. Both disgusting an embarrassing. For the price and expectation of this meal this is unacceptable. Even if the food was the best I ever had, this behavior would make it a 1 star.

That being said, the food overall was - good. Some dishes really stood out but some lacked flavor. It was difficult to understand what we were eating. The explanation of the dishes was provided in English by non native English speakers so not having clear understanding of the ingredients is to be expected. As a foreign patron I understand this but it should be noted.

Service was ok but not amazing for a restaurant of this stature. When we sat we asked for the pairing. To begin we had a small pour of sake and were told it would be for the next two dishes. We didn’t receive our first dish for another 15 mins as we all sat waiting and preserving our precious sake. Throughout the night we refilled our own waters. Glasses were left behind. Dishes were not dropped off simultaneously. Staff was professional and good overall. What you would expect from a nice restaurant but not a Michelin restaurant.

None of the food or service matters though. The hygiene of the staff is beyond unacceptable. If it wasn’t such an expensive meal I would have spoken up and left. The rest of the staff witnessed this behavior and ignored it. We’ve had excellent meals around the world and never had an experience as disappointing as this and the chef and staff should reflect on their choice to allow such behavior in their kitchen. There are restaurants in Kyoto that absolutely deserve your patronage and this isn’t one of them. Don’t eat here. This is the only Michelin level meal I have...

This is totally a scam!!!! It is ashamed for Michelin to give this restaurant a 2-star. It is insulting to all the chefs in the list of Michelin guide, especially those in Japan who have been nothing but incredibly working very hard to deserve to be in the list. This is not the first Michelin restaurant I've been, around the world but the first that I have a review because it is really unacceptable. I wouldn't say anything if it is just a not-so-good or even a bad restaurant but a 2 Michelin Star???? It is a joke!!!! And I wish there is a negative review star. Food: so everything is deep fry and stir fry. You will find about 3 kinds of the same chicken balls that I would find in any cheap Chinese restaurant in north america. And if there is a theme in the menu (there is no written menu so 90% of the time we didn't understand whats going on), it is the maximalism. They tried to stuff every single ingredient they can find in every single dish. The cooking technique (if any) could not even compare to the street food you can find in any corner of china or hong kong. Service: this is even worst. The staffs are not trained to have any knowledge about the food and the wine. Most of the time they mumbling about the endless list of ingredients and without the menu I had a hard time understand what I was swallowing. They just bring the food out, mumbling for half of a min, leave us another half min to digest everything and come back trying to clean it out of the table. It is faster than the fast food store!!!! I don't even want to mention the price because it is bad for any price, but if anyone is curious it is about $300 each. If you are a foody or have any respect for all the restaurants and chefs working so hard ro get the recognition, you should not go to this restaurant. Michelin should consider this as a stain in their...