Kikunoi is a restaurant that received three stars in Michelin guidebook. The branch store Roan Kikunoi, with two stars, is located in Kyoto Gion. One step in the store, you will be separated from the crowed streets, to a calm atmosphere. However, there are some flaws in serving the customer so it only got two stars.

There are ten bar counter seats, two table seats and three Japanese style rooms. You can se the cook slicing fish and enjoy conversation with the cook at the bar seats. No matter what you order, each dish is gently made. Of course the dish can be enjoyed by its looks but the taste that comes out from each bite makes you surprised.

Zen-sai. Bottom right is sea bream seasoned with shuto. Bottom middle is Spanish mackerel grill seasoned with yuzur. Bottom left is brassica rapa subbar and shimeji mushrooms. Top right is conger pike and burdock, top middle is mackerel with grated radish, and top left is ayur rolled in kelp.

Sea bream seasoned with shuto. The taste encourages you to drink alcohol. Shuto are bonito guts pickled in salt. The salty shuto and soft but chewy sea bream matches well.

Spanish mackerel grilled with yuzur. The yuzur flavor matches the grilled but soft light seasoned fish. It is a dish that is meant for hors d’oeuvre because the light seasoning makes you even hungrier.

Brassica rapa with shimeji mushrooms. The light dashi seasoning, crunchy brassica rapa and elastic shimeji mushroom matches together.

Conger pike and burdock. The lightly seasoned conger pike wrap up the burdock with strong taste. Conger pike has some soft bones in it but does not bother. The balance of the fish and burdock is good.

Mackerel with grated radish. The thick taste of mackerel and radish that removes the smell of fish matches well. The radish is not hot but sweet. Probably they choose the good radish and grating it in a special way. The mackerel has lot of fat on it and is very good.

Ayur rolled in kelp. Soft ayur is being rolled with tasty kelp.

Otsukuri, or fresh slices of raw baby tuna and sea bream. Baby tuna’s fresh is softer than the adult tuna and does not have much fat. Perhaps that is why it was flavored. The sea bream has some texture but soft at the same time. The green and yellow thing in front is wasabi and pickles.

Yuba manju. A yuba that is rooled in a ball. Once you take a bite, the soup that yuba has absorbed comes out. Yuzur skin is placed on the top. Your stomach will warm up.

Fried taro. Before frying it, a rice cracker is scattered on the potato, adding to the flavor. The starchy soup has garland chrysanthemum as the dashi. You can enjoy three textures, the crunchy coating, soft taro, and thick soup.

Tempura

There are shrimp, carrot, mixture of radish, burdock, and sweet potato tempura.

All of them has thin layer of the coating so that you can enjoy the taste of the shrimp and vegetable itself. The shrimp has a cut made purposely so that it will be big and elastic. The carrot was very soft and sweet potato was fluffy. The mixture fry has such a thin layer that it is surprising that the shape is maintained. The maitake mushroom had its good taste too. You can eat it with salt or dip it in a soup. Either way, you will be surprised with the excellent job the cook is doing.

Rice and soup. The rice is flavored with shimeji mushroom and thin slice of deep-fried bean curd. The soup has Chinese cabbage and black pepper. This rice is very good. Everything in it is high quality. The rice is in the right softness that chewing them pulls out the flavor of not only the rice but also the mushroom and deep-fried bean curd. The soup does not use miso. They use only dashi, Chinese cabbage and black pepper. It is very light flavored but the black pepper adds a spice to it.

Pickles. From the left is kelp, daikon radish, and vegetables with white sesame.

Dessert. Soba sponge cake with caramel ice cream.
There is caramel ice cream on top of buckwheat sponge cake and there are buckwheat nut on top of the ice cream. You might think that the ice cream is the main part of the dessert but actually, the sponge cake is. The ice cream only makes up for the juiciness to it. The nut is crunchy and becomes an accent to the texture.

■Roan Kikunoi Kiyamachi Store
Address: 118 Kiyamachi Shijo Kudaru Saitomachi, Shimogyo-ku, Kyoto-shi, Kyoto
Hours: 12:00-13:30, 17:00-20:30（door opened time） closed on Wednesday
Website: https://kikunoi.jp