A one-star restaurant “Kyomi Kai” is a quaint machiya-style restaurant located in "Higashi-Chaya district", one of the three Chaya districts in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture's old capital. The name of the restaurant "Kai (paddle)" reflects the desire to create a warm and pleasant restaurant with dishes and hospitality as mixing with a kai tool in sake making, and the desire to treat customers step by step as rowing a boat. Chef Jun Tajiri and his wife warmly and gently welcomes the guests.
Chef Tajiri is from Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture. His father, a food connoisseur, took him around from an early age to eat, and he started to stay in the kitchen often at home. He then aspired to become a professional chef and entered “L'Ecole Culinaire Kunitachi (L'Ecole Tsuji)”. After graduation, he trained at a long-established soba restaurant in Yamagata Prefecture. Back in Tokyo, he went to the famous “Soba Kaiseki Muan” in Tachikawa. He worked hard as a chef and became independent in 2015. Since his wife's hometown was Kanazawa, he decided to set up his restaurant “Kyomi Kai” here, also because "Kanazawa is an ideal place for chefs as it is close to the seas and mountains, and has a lot of ingredients". The reputation of the homemade soba and dishes made with ingredients from the Hokuriku region spread outside the prefecture and became a popular restaurant that was introduced in a worldwide gourmet guidebook.
Most of the ingredients used are local, Chef Tajiri visits the market every day and get good quality ingredients due to his connections with producers and farmers. Seafood is from Kanazawa Bay, Nanao Bay in Noto, Wajima Bay, etc. Vegetables are delivered from farmers in Kanazawa. The soba that they are proud of is made with homemade buckwheat that uses local ingredients from Fukui and Toyama. The grains are small, strong and fragrant. The buckwheat is ground by hand using restaurant's millstone. The production method is to use "grinder" in which each layer of buckwheat seed is not separated, until number 3rd ~ 4th flour is ground, and the mixture is "Sotoji ". The soba goes down smoothly, and you can feel the roughness and flavor of the coarse-ground soba.
In addition, the soup stock is made of matured rishiri-konbu kelp and Hon-karebushi, and the lacquered bowls of Wajima are changed from season to season to express different phases. The ingredients, bowls, and the beautiful aroma and appearance convey the charm of Kanazawa's nature. The sake is carefully-selected from three prefectures in the Hokuriku region, Ishikawa, Toyama and Fukui, and it has a light taste and matches well with the food. The restaurant mainly has domestic wine that goes well with the gentle broth.
The building was built around 100 years ago in the early Taisho period. The characteristic lattice of the machiya "Kinusuko" in Kanazawa is beautiful, leaving the appearance of the Kanazawa-machiya unchanged. There is only table seating in the restaurant. Enjoy cuisine, sake and soba noodles at “Kyomi Kai”. Please have a relaxing meal with family, friends and guests from overseas.
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* The availability of this webpage does not guarantee that the restaurant presented provides services in English, unless otherwise stated. Please be aware that English services may also depend on staff availability at the restaurant.
Access
10 minutes by taxi from “Kanazawa Station” Kenrokuen-guchi (JR Hokuriku Main Line (Maibara - Toyama)) (Higashi Chaya District)