Yamafuku — Restaurant in Kyoto

In total a great place we really enjoyed! Food: 5 Star. Shabushabu with pork was really good. I ate a lot of shabushabu and various chinese hot pot before. But this one was still unique, even for my Chinese girlfriend. I don't want to give away too much detail now:) don't miss out on the noodles either. also, i was a bit embarrassed to order it in a Japanese restaurant, but the french fries were awesome. a bit soggy, but with a slight taste of anchovies. a really Japanese style to improve even classics from abroad.

place and service: 5 star. classic Japanese interior with comfortable seats, smooth jazz playing in the background. service was outstanding, even for the already high Japanese standard. all the staff was speaking English, and even if it was not fully fluent they were super nice and trying to have a little conversation when preparing your food. also explained really nice what they did and why. we had a small complaint (see below) and the staff was obviously quite embarrassed handled the situation really nice.

price: very ok for the location, the service level and the quality of food.

why only 4 stars in total? we found a little maggot in the vegetables. for some people a deal breaker. if you have spend enough time in Asia you will not freak out about that. overall the palce was very clean and probably just had an unlucky day. i said they probably didn't clean the vegetable enough, my chinese girlfriend saw it as a positive sign that they didn't use a lot off pesticides:D would still go there again for sure and can absolutely...

Been here twice, once in 2016 and once in 2023 and this restaurant was equally as good both times around (if not even better the second time around).

Having tried numerous Shabu Shabu experiences across Japan, I would rate this one as the best I've had. Most other Shabu places were good, but lacked much impact with the broth. Not the case Yamafuku, as the addition of soy milk into their broth along with the dried fish makes everything more flavourful without overpowering the taste of your meat and vegetables.

They have staff available that can speak enough English to allow you to order, explain the cooking process and hold basic conversations with you without any troubles. If you're able to get a seat at the counter it's even better, but the upstairs tables with tatami flooring is also very comfortable.

The quality of all the ingredients is high, and everything is very fresh. We ordered the pork and wagyu set, tempura and dessert and would recommend trying all of it. They also have a large variety of sake and drinks available with an English menu describing the flavour profiles of each.

If you're looking for a great Shabu Shabu restaurant then look no further. Making a reservation is also easy to do through the tablecheck website. I highly recommend...

Service employee was highly unprofessional and made customers feel unwelcome, overall unpleasant experience.

We arrived at the restaurant at roughly 7.30pm on a weekday night where there was no queue, and the service employee had initially offered us a table for 4, but we decided to take a look at the food selection before taking the table and so we asked for the menu.

After we decided that the menu was suitable (which we took no more than 2-3 minutes to decide), the service employee abruptly told us that they no longer have a table for us and told us to wait till 10pm if we wanted a table. Note that nobody entered the restaurant while we were looking through the menu, so there was no possibility that any new customers occupied the table while we were deciding for the 2-3 minutes.

We believe this behaviour was unjustified as we were simply looking at the food selection and did not take up the restaurant nor another customer's time doing so. We think this reflects badly on the restaurant which was very disappointing for a restaurant that was well-rated. We think that potential patrons should be aware of how this restaurant treats...