Kyōya — Restaurant in Takayama

We were looking for a nice lunch spot to try Hida beef after a long morning of walking around touring the sights. I saw this restaurant mentioned in a review for a nearby shrine and was intrigued by the reviewer’s enthusiastic recommendation.

The restaurant is cozy and the service was super friendly. We came right after the lunch rush and lucked out on getting a table with the DIY coal grill. The restaurant has English menus and the wait staff all spoke excellent English. Our’s even visited our home city in the states and made a funny topical joke about it.

The menu is diverse and you can order both ala carte, as well as set menus if you’re feeling indecisive. We went with the Hoba Miso set and ordered ala carte items of the prime Hiba beef, shitake mushrooms, prawns, and cold soba. For drinks we tried their dry hot sake and their homemade plum wine (Umeshu). The latter was awesome and way better than your standard Choya. Super smooth with a nice subtle floral aftertaste. I make my own at home and I’m astounded by how much more delicate and flavorful theirs is in comparison. Definitely a must try!

The food was great. All the ingredients were fresh and high quality. I noticed their soba noodles had variance in their width, suggesting they were hand cut.

The beef was excellent. Tender with a nice beef flavor and the accompanying dipping sauce really tied it all together. Quick note: Hida beef is pretty fatty. For best results you want to grill it to at least medium, so the fat is properly rendered and diffused in the meat. It’s the same with high quality Kobe beef. Some of the one-star reviews mentioned the beef was chewy and I’m certain it was because they undercooked it.

The bill for the two of us was under ¥9000 yen. Amazing value...

I was so excited to try this place because a Youtuber recommended it. I was thankful that I had a seat. The 1st question asked was "Which country are u from?" This question was asked 3- 4 times throughout the whole meal there. At first, I thought the staff were being friendly for asking. But when the staff took order, she wrote my nationality on the paper.

When the food arrived, the lady(thin and can speak good English) served me. But I realize that some of the dishes from the set were missing. So I asked her if this was all that is served, as some places have different side dishes from the menu. To my horror, I havent finish my question, she just walked away. When the balance of food came, I asked her if I would need to cook houba miso – hida beef on my own, as I saw the customers on other tables had theirs cooked by the waitress. My houba miso was left there, not cooked for some time. And that lady told me "Please cook yourself!". You didnt even listen!

Anyway, the obachan came and cooked for me, which I m very grateful for. The obachan was very kind to me, and I would prefer her to serve me than that lady.

That lady and the guy- maybe the owner were rather friendly with other customers from certain places. Yes, it is true they are friendly like some reviews here, but only from their list of countries.

Sadly, I m not in the list. I was rather offended by the way that lady acted, walking away before I finished my question!

The food is so-so. This place is overrated.

The 2 things I m grateful for are the kindness of the obachan and the traditional atmosphere created here. For this, I give a 2 star.

But, I wouldnt come again as I feel so stressful with the...

We chose this place for dinner because it seems that when you’re in Takayama, you need to try their Hida beef. This looked like the perfect place! My husband and I rarely eat beef, but we really wanted to try this because it is such a local specialty and the descriptions sounded so good – melt in your mouth tender.

We ordered the hida beef luxury set menu and the miso set menu with a cold local dry sake. The sake was nice and came in a fun glass. The food also came quite quickly and the people working here were very nice and accommodating.

We were really excited to try the beef. The set menu included beef with the miso on the hoba leaf, and a few pieces of both thin and thicker cuts that we could grill ourselves. Our waitress came over and helped us prepare the beef with the miso on the leaf – it was cooking over a separate cooker. She let us know when it was ready. It tasted pretty good and the flavor of the miso was nice. I enjoyed the miso with the rice.

The other cuts of meat, in our opinion, were nothing special. I’m really sorry to say that! We found them to be pretty chewy and similar to a hamburger taste. That’s not a bad thing… but they were definitely not what we were expecting and they were all far from melt in your mouth tender. We tried cooking them in multiple ways to make sure that we weren’t messing it up. We even asked the waitress how long we should cook them for.

We found the restaurant ambiance to be very lovely and we really enjoyed the hoba miso with vegetables. The people working here were very kind and attentive. We also enjoyed the hoba miso set menu. The beef, however, was not for us,...