The Best Chinese Food in Kyoto
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The best Chinese food in Kyoto, according to the experts: the Michelin Guide and Gault&Millau have both weighed in, and their honors are what rank this list. VELROSIER comes out on top.
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Kyo Seika and Hirosawa hold the next two places. The Michelin Guide shows up on more of this list than any other guide, with Gault&Millau next.
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Rank 1. VELROSIER
Chinese
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: 1 Star
- Gault&Millau Gault&Millau: 3 Toques
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Rank 2. Kyo Seika
Chinese
Counter seats directly in front of the kitchen mean you watch every wok toss and catch every wave of smoke at this one-Michelin-star Chinese restaurant in Kyoto. The chef's project is a seasonal Chinese cooking shaped by Japanese instinct, so what lands on the plate shifts with the market. The couple runs the room together, and the chef is the kind of cook who talks while he works, which turns dinner into something closer to a long conversation with food in it.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: 1 Star
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Rank 3. Hirosawa
Chinese
A modern Chinese restaurant where the chef named it after himself, which is either confidence or a dare. The cooking blends French technique into Chinese foundations, with Japanese dashi folded into hot pot stocks and the plating done on traditional Japanese vessels. Garlic is dialed back so the ingredients carry the room themselves. Intimate and quietly serious, the kind of place where the effort is visible even when the menu isn't showing off.
The awards
- Gault&Millau Gault&Millau: 3 Toques
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Restaurant
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Rank 4. Canton Shunsai Ikki
Cantonese
A Guangdong-trained chef running a Chinese restaurant in Kyoto, cooking with rice bran oil because the fragrance is the point. The pitch is that Guangdong and Kyoto share the same logic: sea, mountain, river, light hand on the seasoning, let the ingredient speak. It sits somewhere between banquet hall and hole-in-the-wall, landing in neither, and the Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand. Seasonal vegetables arrive as a matter of course.
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Bib Gourmand
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Rank 5. Hachiraku
Urban Chinese
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Restaurant
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Rank 5. Hakubi
Modern Chinese
The awards
- Michelin Guide Michelin Guide: Selected Restaurant