Kyoto Tips: Where to Stay, Eat and What to See
Kyoto is one of my favorite cities, not only in Japan but in the entire world. Although I live in Tokyo (for work-related reasons), Kyoto is registered in my weather app – always there reminding me that a quick trip on a sunny weekend is always a possibility (especially if it is the autumn season: One Fine Autumn Day in Kyoto).
If you are planning your first trip to Japan and considering whether Kyoto should be included in your itinerary, you may have encountered many derogatory descriptions: “Kyoto is overrated, over-touristy, it feels like a circus.” I can assure you that none of that comes from this blog (and I even wrote a separate post on why you should visit Kyoto). Kyoto is a wonderful city and deserves a place on every first trip to Japan. And if you plan a little carefully, it is always possible to have a relatively secluded experience. Last year, I spent a whole week in the city hiking the surprisingly rewarding Kyoto Trail, which introduced me to a side of Kyoto that I had never experienced before, with a fraction of the crowds.
So, in case you could resist all the online discouragement and still decided to visit Kyoto, these are some of my Kyoto recommendations – where to stay, where to eat, and what to see in Kyoto. At the end of the post, I also added some reading recommendations.
Where to stay in Kyoto?
You can find all kinds of accommodation in Kyoto including high-end chain hotels, luxurious ryokans, business hotels, more stylish hotels and hostels.
One of the things that I like about traveling in Japan, as explained in my Japan travel tips post, is the availability of single rooms at a reduced rate. And there are a number of options in Kyoto offering comfortable rooms at reasonable rates to solo travelers.
Hotel Anteroom, my Kyoto home
As I very often travel solo, Hotel Anteroom in Kyoto, which features single rooms, is my go-to choice whenever I am in Kyoto. I like the compactness of the rooms (that still feature all the necessary amenities, including a desk space) and the spacious and stylish lounge area.
Located in the southern part of the city, Hotel Anteroom also gives me the chance to explore the less-visited parts of Kyoto. If you book well in advance, you can often book a single room for 5,000-6,000 Yen/night. They also offer a carefully put-together breakfast buffet for 1,500 Yen.
Recently renovated Hotel She Kyoto
Another hotel – just one minute walking distance from Anteroom – within a similar price range to Anteroom is Hotel She Kyoto. The hotel offers larger rooms than Anteroom but has a much smaller lounge area. I recently stayed at She for a night during a recent trip to Kyoto, and I was very satisfied with the experience.
Hotel Tsugu by Share Hotels
While in a higher price range (15,000-20,000 Yen/night), Hotel Tsugu located near Nishiki Market, is another favorite of mine. The location is wonderful if you are short on time and want to be close to some of the major sites. The hotel belongs to the Share Hotels Group, which you can always count on for minimalistic and stylish design in Japan. (I also love their Kanazawa hotel.)
Where to eat in Kyoto? Cafes, comfort food, and wine bars
While I do love eating, I am definitely not a foody. However, I very much enjoy the cafe scene in Kyoto. There are many cafes occupying traditional-style Kyoto townhouses. They all offer a very serene atmosphere and serve as a sanctuary in the middle of an often busy day of sightseeing.
As for dining (since I live in Japan), I am not always on the lookout for Japanese cuisine when visiting Kyoto. So some of my suggestions here offer a break from – often delicious but sometimes demanding -Japanese cuisine with menus featuring a fine selection of sophisticatedly cooked comfort food.
Cafe Marble, tasty lunch, dinner, and drink sets in a traditional Kyoto townhouse
My favorite cafe in Kyoto is Cafe Marble (their branch located in central Kyoto, close to Nishiki Market), which offers great lunch sets in an atmosphere so soothing that one can easily extend their lunch break to 2-3 hours. During a recent visit, I ordered their risotto lunc,h and it was delicious.
Marble also offers take-outs, and you can even pay by credit card, not an easy find in Kyoto!
Kabura: stylish setting, delicious food
Kabura, close to Nishiki Market, is another favorite offering Italian cuisine with a Japanese touch. Hokkaido beef dish and Kabura salads are both excellent.
They accept credit cards, and if you are dining solo, you will likely get a seat at the counter overlooking the street – luck you.
Cafe Bibliotic Hello, Insta-famous Kyoto establishment
Cafe Bibliotic Hello!, a famous Kyoto establishment that enjoys a more spacious space, is another venue that is good for both lunch and dinner. It is also a great place to get a quick drink in the afternoon before dinner. In addition to table seating, they also have comfortable sofas.
While the place is quite popular and relatively Insta-famous thanks to its photogenicness, it still feels very peaceful inside. Just keep in mind that Cafe Bibliotic Hello only accepts cash payments.
Yakitori dining in Gion, watch the master in action
For dinner, if you are a yakitori fan (chicken skewers) like me, I always enjoy Yakitori Tarokichi in the Gion district for its atmosphere, friendly host, and tasty food. The store occupies two floors, but if there is room, I prefer to sit at the counter and watch the master at work.
Cafe & Wine Bar Knuckles, wonderful hosts and tasty food
Knuckles, run by a lovely family, is a recent find for me in Kyoto. Great wine selection and a very serene atmosphere, but more importantly, amazingly welcoming hosts.
The menu is also fairly comprehensive, offering tasty gourmet sandwiches, salads, and finger foods. Cafe & Wine Bar Knuckles, which is open all day on weekends and for lunch and dinner on weekdays, is also very close to one of my favorite places in Kyoto – the Kyoto Gyoen National Garden.
Bistrot Bleeker, a wonderful chef and a trendy setting
Bistrot Bleeker, opened by a very welcoming female chef with 20 years of experience in the New York dining scene, is a wonderful dinner option in Kyoto. The menu features a mixture of foods relying on quality Japanese ingredients, such as wagyu beef, and New York bistrot-style comfort food, such as jerk chicken.
I really enjoyed my two visits to Bistrot Bleeker, where I got to chat with and watch the chef in action while sipping my glass of perfectly cold white wine.
Two atmospheric French bistros
French cuisine is big in Japan. As a lover of France, French cuisine, and the overall atmosphere, I sure have no complaints.
A la Chalomont, located next to Kyoto National Garden, is a cozy little French bistrot offering wonderful set menus (around 1600 Yen) with many different options. Bistrot is run by a husband-and-wife duo who are exceptionally welcoming. Reservations are required for dinner time, and they only accept cash payments.
Le Bouchon, a 15-minute walk from Pontocho, is another great French option, and I highly recommend the steak lunch set. Even for lunch, a reservation is highly recommended.
Taste of Okinawa in Kyoto, Goya
One of the wonderful things about Kyoto and Japan in general is that most establishments manage to stay in business and survive for a long, long time. It may be partly due to governmental support, which was also admirably comprehensive during the Covid-19 pandemic, but also community support, where people do not give up on local shops quickly.
Goya offering Okinawan-style food is one of the places that I discovered during my very first visit to Kyoto in 2012, and 11 years later, it still stands strong.
Located in Northern Higashiyama, Goya offers not only tasty cuisine but an exceptionally relaxing atmosphere with beautiful natural lighting and often very soothing music. I usually stop by Goya for lunch when I visit the sites located in the Higashiyama area.
Sites to visit in and near Kyoto
Home to more than 2000 temples and shrines, it is impossible to run out of places to visit in Kyoto. Kiyomizu Dera, Golden Pavilion, Silver Pavilion, Nishiki Market, and Nanzenji Temple are only a few of the countless world-famous landmarks hosted by the city.
Instead of listing all these marvelous and well-known places that one should for sure visit, I will just list some of the lesser-known and/or lesser-visited but rewarding sites.
Ruriko-in Temple, like a scene from a dream
My recent visit to Kyoto coincided with the limited summer period during which Ruriko-in Temple – located in the northern part of Kyoto at the foot of Mount Hiei (50-minute bus ride from the main train station) – was open to the public.
The temple opens its doors to the public only three times a year, and it is particularly popular during the autumn colors viewing (koyo) season. The entrance costs 2,000 Yen per person (noticeably more expensive compared to other landmarks in the city that cost 500 Yen), but the scenery waiting for you on the second floor is worth both the cost and the trip. There is a large lacquered table that serves as a mirror reflecting the forest scenery surrounding the temple and creating a dream-like scenery.
Kozan-ji Temple outside of Kyoto City
It took me maybe more than ten visits to Kyoto to finally visit the Takao area and the splendid but a little less visited temples. I think it would probably take me another ten visits to finally drag myself away from the city and visit the area if it were not for the Kyoto Trail.
Directly accessible by public bus from Kyoto Train, one of the main attractions of the Takao Area is the Kozan-ji Temple, home to Japan’s oldest tea field and, reportedly, some of the earliest manga! Founded by a monk of the Shingon Sect of Buddhism, the temple is nestled in a dense forest, offering an ideal, very peaceful setting for a morning visit.
You can combine a visit to the Kozan-ji area with a half-day hike along one of the most beautiful sections of the Kyoto Trail, the Nishiyama Course, which follows a river and eventually leads to Arashimaya Bamboo Forest.
Byodo-in Temple in Uji, a beautiful temple and an even more beautiful museum
Only a 20-minute train ride away from Kyoto Station, Byodo-in Temple, located in Uji, is a site to see if you think you have already had a share of your temple viewing.
A prime example of Buddhist Pure Land style architecture, the temple was originally built as a rural residence of one of the influential political figures of the time during the 10th century. While, like many other historical structures in Japan, Byodo-in had its share of fires and destructive events, the Phoenix Hall, home to a giant Buddha statue, has survived in its original form and can be visited for a little extra fee of 300 Yen.
The temple complex is also home to a museum, a treasure house, where artifacts from the temple are on display. It is honestly one of the most impressive museum settings that I have seen in Japan, where the lighting and decor match the quality of the artifacts on display.
Kyoto Gyoen National Garden: not only for Sakura
The gardens surrounding the Imperial Palace are a very famous spot to visit during the sakura season, when Kyoto likely draws the biggest number of visitors.
I, however, highly recommend a visit to the gardens even outside of the sakura season. It is a perfect place to do people-watching, reading, and taking a break from all the sightseeing. I particularly enjoy the park during the autumn colors viewing season, when the park is somehow always overlooked and hosts a fraction of the people visiting the temples for autumn colors viewing.
Plum blossom viewing in Kyoto
Overshadowed by the sakura, the plum blossom is another wonderful opportunity to experience the beauty of spring and the flowers with much fewer crowds.
To enjoy the plum flower blooming often in the later part of February, Kitano Tenmangu Shinto Shrine, located in the northern part of the city, and Jonan-gu Shrine, located in the southern part of the city, are two wonderful destinations. I prefer Jonan-gu over Kitano Tenmangu Shrine for the garden, the greenery of which is beautifully contrasted with the pink petals of the plum flower.
Kennin-ji Temple, dragons in Kyoto`s oldest Zen temple
It took me more than ten visits to Kyoto to finally make time for Kennin-ji, a Zen temple located near Gion, and I wish I had visited sooner. The temple was built in 1202 and is believed to be the oldest Zen temple in Kyoto.
While the dragon paintings decorating the ceiling and shoji doors are the main draw, I particularly enjoyed the interiors overlooking the beautiful garden. One can spend hours sitting there looking at the garden, and you are free and even encouraged to do so.
Sakura in Kyoto: diary of a three-day trip
Experiencing the sakura, the bloom of cherry blossoms that occurs roughly around late March, early April in Kyoto, is truly a wonderful experience, albeit a fairly crowded one.
Last year, I spent three days in Kyoto, visiting the famous sakura spots within the city and also taking day trips to Takao, Arashiyama, and Mount Yoshino, which offered the most spectacular, grand, and wild sakura sceneries that I have experienced. You can read the diaries of the Cherry Blossom trip to Kyoto.
Experiencing the Kyoto Trail
In all these years that I have been regularly visiting Kyoto, one of my favorite activities to date has been hiking the Kyoto Trail – the 80-kilometer hiking trail that circles the city through the surrounding hills and mountains.
The trail takes around five to six days to complete, but even experiencing a section will likely be one of the highlights of your Kyoto trip. The trail, which never wanders too far from the city, gives you the chance to observe and experience some of the best-known and most visited landmarks, including Fushimi Inari and Arashiyama, from a completely different and fresh perspective. I wrote about day-by-day diaries of my hike along the Kyoto Trail for the subscribers to my newsletter, Hiking the Kyoto Trail.
Books about Kyoto
If you are looking for some Kyoto-related books to read before or during your trip, these are some of my suggestions:
Another Kyoto by Alex Kerr, the author of the wonderful Lost Japan, offers a very digestible guide to the architectural wonders of the city, including walls, sliding doors, floors, and temple gates. I always pack Another Kyoto with me whenever I visit the city, as it really helps me to better understand the role of the sites that the city is home to in a larger context without feeling too overwhelmed.
The Old Capital by Yasunari Kawabata was one of the novels that the Nobel Committee cited when awarding the author the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968. This short novella delves into the life of an adopted but dearly loved girl brought up in Kyoto by a family operating a dry goods shop in the city. It is a pleasant read that also touches upon the cultural aura of the city with the backdrop of its still-famous festivals.
Deep Kyoto Walks is a collection of 18 essays by 16 Kyoto-based authors offering 18 different strolls in the old capital of Japan. It makes a good company if you intend to cover Kyoto on foot.
The Temple of the Golden Pavilion is a rather unconventional Kyoto story focusing on one man`s destructive obsession with one of the most visited sites of the city—the Golden Pavilion. The novel by Yukio Mishima is inspired by true events.
Countless sites, but only one Kyoto
There are countless places to visit in Kyoto that are impossible to list in one post or cover in a single visit. But it may also be a good idea to set aside a day or two when visiting the city without any plans, just to aimlessly enjoy its narrow streets that often lead to beautiful but somehow lesser-known temples, shrines, and gardens. I am a hopeless Kyoto fan, and I really hope you enjoy this exquisite city as much as I do.
For more Kyoto posts:
Sakura in Kyoto: Diary of a Three-Day Visit
Where else to visit in Japan?
For more destinations in Japan:
Where to Visit in Japan (other than Kyoto and Tokyo)?
Fall Colors Trip to Aomori in Tohoku
Best Island Destinations of Japan
Japan Travel Guide: Hikes, Onsen, Cities and More
