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Yasaka is the Park Hyatt Kyoto's Signature Restaurant, a modern French inspired take on traditional Japanese teppanyaki. It's helmed by Michelin-starred Chef Kampei Hisaoka, who originally hails from Nara, but worked in France for 16 years, earning a Michelin star at La Truffiere in Paris.
TravelSort Clients reserving the Park Hyatt Kyoto with Hyatt Prive benefits enjoy a $100 hotel credit for use during the stay; we highly recommend using it towards dinner at Yasaka.
Yasaka Location and Reservations
Yasaka is located at the Park Hyatt Kyoto, in the Higashiyama district of Kyoto, at 360 Kodaiji Masuyacho. The restaurant is only open for dinner, and since the teppan grill seats just 8 guests, advance reservations are highly recommended. Reserve by emailing yasaka-parkhyatt@hyatt.com.
See our Yasaka at the Park Hyatt Kyoto YouTube Video Review:
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Yasaka Menu and Food
Yasaka offers 5 course, 7 course and 8 course menus, and I was asked in advance to select my preferred menu; I selected the 5 course menu, for JPY 18,000.
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The amuse bouche, duck en croute with pickled burdock, was a delicious preview of what was to come.
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Prior to preparing it on the teppan grill, Chef Hisaoka showed me the ingredients for the first course: caviar, Hokkaido sea urchin (uni), prawn, and creme fraiche. It was truly a spectacular first course: savory pancake with shrimp, caviar, and sweet uni.
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The next course was very good, although I couldn't quite do it justice as I'm not a huge fan of squid, even Japanese firefly squid, which here was served with French white asparagus in a delectable orange hollandaise with sake Kasu and wild rocket.
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The following course of Spanish mackerel with local vegetables and a heavenly bouillabaisse sauce was fortunately served with bread and garlic butter. I used the bread to mop up every last bit of the sauce. This and the savory pancake with uni and caviar were probably my favorite courses of the meal.
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A refreshing palate cleanser of lemon cream with meringue was next, followed by the rich wagyu course. I actually preferred the wagyu tenderloin over the wagyu sirloin, as I found the sirloin a bit too rich and buttery, but others might easily prefer the opposite. Accompanying the meat, which of course was fantastic unadorned, were vanilla salt, fresh wasabi and chimichurri sauce. I enjoyed each of them, but especially the bright piquant flavors of the chimichurri sauce, as a contrast to the buttery meat. There was also potato, bamboo, and mushroom as a side dish.
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Usually dessert for traditional Japanese restaurants is fresh fruit or perhaps a Japanese sweet, but thanks to Chef Hisaoka's French cuisine expertise, I was treated to pineapple flambé with rum, maple crumble, black sesame panna cotta, coconut ice cream. The tropical flavors of the pineapple and coconut married extremely well with the maple crumble and black sesame.
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The Verdict
We're not always fond of fusion cuisine, but Yasaka was our favorite dinner in Japan on this recent site inspection trip. The combination of stellar ingredients, masterful preparation, a wonderful view of the Yasaka Pagoda, and the best of Japanese and French cuisines superbly prepared by Chef Hisaoka is not to be missed.
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