Rating: 17/20
Where: Osaka, Japan
When: Dinner for 2 on 16 January 2023
Cost per Person: Tasting menu 22000-50600 Yen, Wine Pairing 10120 Yen
Accolades: 3 Michelin Stars, Tabelog Bronze Award (2023)
Why: Traditional Kaiseki cuisine with some small twists

Kashiwaya is a three-star Michelin restaurant located in a residential neighborhood just north of Osaka, Japan. We rode the subway, which took about ten minutes from downtown Osaka followed by a 15 minute walk through quiet streets lined with houses.

Thanks to the pandemic-related travel restrictions, it had been over three years since we last visited Japan, so we were excited to go back. Reserving high-end restaurants in Japan often requires meticulous (and months-long) pre-planning, but we were able to get a reservation here on relatively short notice.

Holding three Michelin stars continuously since 2010, Kashiwaya serves traditional Kaiseki cuisine. This cuisine has a fixed sequence of dishes, so it is always served in the form of a tasting menu. The only choice we had to make was how much to pay for our dinner. At the time of our visit, there were three options priced at 22000, 38500 and 50600 yen, respectively, with the difference being the “quality” of the ingredients - the length of the menu did not change. Since the price had to be chosen several days ahead of the reservation, and there were no published menus, this was pretty much a stab in the dark - would paying more really result in a better dinner? I hoped so. Kashiwaya is not an outlier in this regard, however - many Japanese fine-dining restaurants require such an upfront choice. We went for the highest priced option, mainly to give the restaurant the best chance to shine. Our dinner was entirely pescatarian, which is also not uncommon for a Kaiseki meal.

More tradition: the only seating options available were seven private tatami rooms. Luckily, we didn't have to sit cross-legged on the floor for several hours since there was a space for legs beneath the table, and seats with backrests were provided as well.

Arriving at the restaurant, we had to submit to a quick temperature check and required hand-washing (thank you, Covid...), but then we were quickly led to our private dining room. It had a minimal Japanese decor and a single window that overlooked the trees next to the building's entrance. Our room could have fit six people comfortably, so it was luxurious for just the two of us. We did not see any other guests during our stay, but heard laughter once or twice.

Since the food choices had been made before our arrival, we only had to choose our drinks. A saucer full of sake was offered as a welcome present, and there was a beverage pairing available that contained both sake and wines. These drinks were quite enjoyable throughout, and matched the food well enough - meaning they didn't clash, but they also didn't create any particular synergies.

The first dish of our dinner was decorated in a style meant to invoke the new year, and to match the decorations seen at the restaurant's entrance. Sashimi of halfbeak came with mullet row, mushrooms, a canola flower and a citrusy sauce. The fish was very light in flavor, not fishy at all, and a good cut. The mushrooms added some crunch, as did the canola flower which was similar to broccoli. The roe was prepared like bottarga, and cut into slices. It was bit heavy, but the vinegary, citrusy sauce brought everything together nicely 18. My wife was not a fan of the fish; she would have rated this a 16.

Next up: another cold dish. A big block of sesame tofu was topped with uni, avocado slices, and a sauce made from soy sauce and dashi. Little pieces of mountain yam cut like snowflakes completed the dish, and went with the wintry theme. The tofu seemed very fresh: it was surprisingly sticky and gooey by itself. Somewhat light in flavor, it was nevertheless a great base for the dish when mixing all of the ingredients together. Some crunch from the mountain yam, spice from a dollop of wasabi, creaminess from the uni and salt and acidity from the wonderful sauce. Delicious 19.

Every kaiseki menu has a soup course with a clear broth. Usually, the flavors of that soup are very subtle. So for the longest time, while I've always been impressed by the required technique, I never really loved the result. I figured that maybe one had to grow up in Japan to fully appreciate the nuances of this dish. Well, it turns out that I just never had a really good version of it. Today's broth was literally bursting with flavor - a vegetably, umami taste explosion. Brilliant - the best clear broth I've ever had in Japanese cuisine (or any other cuisine, for that matter). If I just rated the broth by itself, this would be a solid 20. But the broth also came with pieces of lobster, a mushroom, radish and a turnip leaf. The lobster was very good and tender, and the turnip leaf had a nice crunch, but the mushroom and radish were not particularly flavorful, dragging the overall rating down a bit 19.

Another traditional Kaiseki course is sashimi. We had cuts of squid, flounder and baby tuna. They were served with a house sauce, a thick mixture of soy sauce and kelp (bottom right in the picture). A second sauce was much lighter: soy sauce with sudachi, a citrus fruit. I preferred the former sauce, but both were pretty good. The cuts of fish were unfortunately not as exciting. While the squid was nicely serrated and creamy, the flounder did not have much taste and was on the chewy side. Finally, the baby tuna was very lean, and had an almost crunchy texture - pretty weird and something I've never seen for tuna before - I think I'll stick with fattier tuna cuts given the choice. Overall, only a so-so presentation of fish 15.

The next dish featured lily bulbs arranged as a flower, surrounded by a starchy sauce containing tofu skin. Sea cucumber guts were placed underneath the flower, presumably to give the dish more flavor. Unfortunately, there was very little of these guts, so that the overall flavor of the dish was quite subtle. Just like the preceding day, the lily bulbs with their mealy texture did not excite me - the tofu sauce improved things somewhat, but not enough to make this dish a winner. A weak 15. My wife was positively reminded of chawanmushi, and would have given a 16.

A trio of seasonal dishes arrived next. We ate them in clockwise order from the top in the picture. First, a tofu paste contained ginkgo nuts, pine nuts, and other seeds, with two goji berries on top. Very light in flavor, with the ginkgo nuts lightly crunchy and a bit bitter. Not too exciting 15. Much better: a prawn served with a soft-boiled egg, caviar, and wasabi. The prawn was excellent, the fresh spicy wasabi gave the dish a nice kick, and the egg blended everything together 19. Almost as good was a scallop with some sliced Japanese spring vegetables and fresh pepper. The dish contained three slices of scallops and each slice was topped with all of the other ingredients, making for three “complete” bites. Very spicy (especially for a Japanese dish) and crunchy; the scallop contributed more texture than taste, alas 18.

Broiled conger eel was served on top of a cake, next to some pickled wasabi flowers and radishes. Sudachi was available to be squeezed over the eel. A hearty dish, and I was a bit torn about the slightly sweet cake under the eel, since it made the whole dish somewhat doughy, with mushy flavors. The pickles and the citrus fruit added some brightness, but I think it could have used even more 16.

Next, we received a dish called “under the snow”, and that's indeed what it looked like: several vegetables and some blowfish covered by a (thankfully warm) white sauce that was a stand-in for said snow. A sprig of dill added to the motif of snow-covered ground. Dill is quite an unusual ingredient for Japanese cuisine, but it was a welcome flavor. The vegetables and creamy sauce were pretty nice, with the sauce being the best use of milt I've ever seen in a dish. Generally milt is an acquired taste, but here you couldn't even tell that it was present, but it enhanced the sauce’s texture. The big letdown of the dish was the fish, which didn't taste of anything. That's not really the restaurant's fault, I've always found it ironic that a fish that can potentially kill you if prepared incorrectly has virtually no taste - so besides the death-defying thrill there is scant reason to eat it 15.

The classic final dish to many Japanese meals is the rice pot, where unlimited servings make sure that no guest leaves hungry. (We were even offered to take the rest home - if only we didn't have another huge dinner the next day.) Here, the rice was topped with pieces of abalone, but the dish was a bit of a disappointment. The rice was cooked perfectly, but was pretty plain seasoning-wise, and the abalone was ok, not great. Even the associated pickles, usually one of my favorites, were a mixed bunch, with only the radish being really good 15.

Luckily, there was an excellent miso soup to go along with the rice. This white miso soup is supposedly special to the Kansai region of Japan where Osaka is located. It was very flavorful, and almost didn't feel like miso soup at all - there was none of the crumbly texture often associated with “normal” miso soups. A bit of added pepper had a slightly numbing effect on the tongue - good that this dish was served near the end of the meal 18.

Desserts came next, and they tended toward the straightforward rather than elaborate side. First, a plate with fresh strawberries, a citrus fruit similar to a pomelo and a cube of jellied honey. The “pomelo” was amazing - very sweet and delicious. The strawberry was fine, sweet but not as flavorful as it would have been in season. Interestingly, the leaves of the strawberry had been separated by two cuts from the fruit - not at all apparent when looking at it, but they came apart instantly when picked up - a nice convenience. The honey jelly was pretty good as well 16.

Red and white mochi were served with dried permissions and a red bean paste. All quite sweet, and a nice dessert 17.

Overall: This was a delightful dinner, with excellent service and everyone speaking great English - not always a given in Japan. The format of the dinner is classic Kaiseki, but the chef does push the boundaries by adding unusual ingredients (dill, avocado, etc) and using textures and spices to create unique dishes. I find this refreshing in a cuisine style that can sometimes feel a bit too constrained. My only concern is that there was some unevenness among the courses, many were superb, but there were also several that were not that exciting to me. And oddly, hardly anything in the middle - quite a bimodal distribution. When every dish is either one or three stars, does that average out to two? Sometimes the single average score at the end doesn't tell the whole story. I don't know how many of the not-so-great dishes can be attributed to the fact that January is not the best time for any highly seasonal cuisine. But I'd be happy to return some warmer time of the year to find out 17.