Ryuzu no Chaya — Restaurant in Nikko

Diamond in the rough （based on my visit in 2015)-

Food: 4 stars Price: 3 stars Ambiance: 5 stars Service: 4 stars Overall: 4 stars

Food: I ordered their rice cake soup (竜頭風おぞう煮) and it was 500 yen. It was a small soup with 3 or 4 pieces of fried rice cake. The soup is like a usual udon soup, but the rice cake was really chewy and yummy! I read from other people's blogs that the sweets were good there too, but I didn't want to eat that much by myself. I also ordered Amakase for 300 yen .. It's like a sweet drink made of rice(?). I enjoyed it as well.

Price: The price is fine consider that you could relax and view the waterfall in front of your eyes~ Also the food was delicious. For less than 10 bucks, I think it's a good deal.

Ambiance: It's pretty slow there and you can relax. Just listen/look at the waterfall and be calm. It was in January, so not many people were there. I heard it was quite busy in Autumn when people go there to see Autumn leaves. However, it was nice and quiet when I was there. There were some tourists but they were mostly older adults and weren't noisy.

Service: It's not really a restaurant restaurant (what? ha), but a place to eat and view the waterfall with a small shop. I didn't expect any kind of service, but the store owner was nice enough to give everyone a cup of hot green tea. I really appreciated it, especially when I was freezing to death there in January.

Overall: This is a lovely place to relax before you head to the next tourist spot. It's nice to look at the waterfall while enjoying some little...

This place is an absolute treasure! I came here to see the waterfall after a lake cruise on my way to a hike.

I had rice with pork and an egg, accompanied by a fried yuba stick. The fried yuba stick was the best yuba taste experience I've had in Nikko—I'm really craving it now! The rice with meat was also fantastic, full of flavour on a spicy side.

It was the perfect meal to fuel me up for a two-hour hike to Yuno Lake and Yudaki Falls.

This place also has a bar section serving matcha and sweets, and a small souvenir shop with great items at reasonable prices.

Great meal with a fantastic view of the waterfall? What more do you need?...

We came across Ryuzu no Chaya after our 11 km hike from Lake Yunoko. This place offered great wi-fi, which we used to access our Klook app (needed to take the bus back down to the Lake Chuzenji area). Our pocket wi-fi was very spotty in this area, so if you need to access to the internet, make sure to stop here. We were trying to get back down to board the cruise at Lake Chuzenji, and didn't get the chance to eat here, which we regret. We would recommend eating here if it is open as there were no open dining options closer to Lake Chuzenji, perhaps due to the time of year (a Wednesday afternoon in November), or the time of day...