Young chef-owner Takayuki Nakatsuka (中塚貴之) has a pretty strong pedigree which caught my eyes when I was doing my research of this trip on the internet. He started his career working under Yoshihiro Narisawa, one of the greatest Japanese chefs who ever took on French cooking. Following 5 years of training under Chef Narisawa at La Napoule in Kanagawa Prefecture, Chef Nakatsuka took off for Europe to further hone his skills. After stops at Michelin starred Le Pre Catelan, Le Grand Vefour (Paris, France), Arzak (San Sebastian, Spain) and Pastorale (Reet, Belgium), he returned to Japan in 2011 working on various projects, including a brief stint at Narisawa in Tokyo. In 2017, his passion guided him back to his hometown Kyoto where he opened his first solo venture, an eponymous restaurant in the heart of Kyoto.
Restaurant Nakatsuka is housed inside a beautifully restored machiya (traditional Kyoto townhouse).
I love restaurants heavy with work furniture and decorations. It really gives us a great sense of comfort and the warm, homey feeling that we're actually dining at a friend's house.
Restaurant Nakatsuka has a very simple food menu comprising of around 10 to 12 dishes so it didn't take very long for us to decide on what we wanted. Before dinner officially started, there was a small amuse bouche, watermelon and beetroot gazpacho with lime leaf foam to get our palates ready.
After the small nibble, we kicked off tonight's meal with our first dish, chilled corn soup with coffee powder, olive oil and popcorn. This was the perfect way to start off a meal in a hot summer night like this. Interesting how they match the sweetness of the sweet corn with some bitterness from the coffee powder and a bit of savory flavor from what I thought was a bacon foam.
Next we had a langoustine salad with diced asparagus, beans and mixed green. A lemony dressing provided some lovely acidity to whet our appetite.
Special thanks to the chef for cooking up a special off-menu pasta for our little one.
It was one of the few times I had the chance to experience a Sendai wagyu beef. I thought it's flavorful and pretty juicy like most wagyu but it didn't have the same marbling as the ones from say, Miyazaki or Kobe.
It was running a little late so instead of dipping into their dessert menu, we reluctantly went for the bill instead.
I had the impression coming in that Restaurant Nakatsuka was a bona-fide French restaurant (because every website said so!) but that was pretty far from the truth. Well, the truth is, it serves up a modern European cuisine based on the chef's extensive travel in Europe and his clever use of local ingredients. It's not as innovative as I once thought it was and it's definitely a work in progress.
PS. I was very impressed with the service, especially our server's fluency in English. That's always a big plus in Japan.
Food Rating: 5.5/10
Price: ￥￥￥
Address: 299 Kinoshitacho, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto, 604-8104 Japan
Closest Metro Station: Karasuma Oike
Tel: +81 (0)7 5223-0015
Website: www.nakatsuka-kyoto.com
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