Monk

Everything from beginning to end was a magical delicious experience with such fresh ingredients and great execution. Will always try to come back when we’re in Kyoto. I believe Japan has the best pizza in the world and Monk stands in the top rankings with not just their flavors, but their philosophy. Highly suggest you visit, but make sure to come hungry as there’s a few dishes before pizza.

With high expectations for Monk after seeing Chef table’s episode, was very lucky to find seats during our 2-days-stay in Kyoto and booked straightaway. Atmosphere felt super cosy, in the mid of a residential area in the outskirts of Kyoto. Guys in charge of service were all very good. When it comes to food: pizza was stunning; their dough was amazing and cooked to perfection. The rest of the dishes part of the course-menu were rather flavorless. I understand they want to showcase natural ingredients as they are, but somehow I didn’t feel much when eating them. Could also have been me, that I have preference for strong and distinctive flavours. Would definitely go back just for the pizza.

Nice food and good atmosphere. The seasoning is a little bit light but follows the philosophies of the shop. Worth trying if you can get a seat.

I had been trying to get a reservation for several years and had very high expectations. Once I got a reservation, the staff were accommodating in requests and moving the reservation. The food is fair to good but often tasted the same and lacked seasoning - for example, the buri was very bland albeit a special kind. I had to ask for salt. The Kyoto Vegetables were good, but again tasted very similar even though they featured several different times throughout the menu. The pizza and simple focaccia were good. The spinach from Ohara was outstanding. For 17,500 pp, which included 2-3 drinks, it seemed expensive for what it was. I wanted more dishes to wow me. Some of the staff were nice but some were not, which is actually rare in a Japanese restaurant. Inconsistency of staff was definitely a drawback. One example is that I was still eating and the staff member insisted taking away my plate while I was mid-bite. For reference, I speak Japanese and have been living and working and visiting in Japan for over 35 years.

Great atmosphere, Great food, keeps up with the hype to be honest. Great pizza and well designed menu and everything somehow cooked with Pizza oven and have never seen any chef using a Pizza oven like him. Chef is adding value to pizza culture with great innovative approach. Highly recommended. Cons: they wont serve you extra pizza if you wish to eat extra.

It is more than a just dinner. Monk provides a great whole dining experience with very exclusive and unforgettable atmosphere. Chef Yoshihiro Imai is the master of simplicity and everything he served is just delicious. Serving simple dishes requires courage and the Chef has all the talent and power to nail it. We loved and enjoyed every second of it.

A simple, yet incredibly memorable meal. The restaurant is located right on the philosophers path between private residences. Service was very attentive from all the staff and Chef himself. Very friendly and happy people. You can feel that they love what they do. Chef's passion for food is apparent in his preparations. Each course was tasty in its simplest form, from starting with a cold soup and sourdough bread, to roasted hand-picked vegetables, to pizza which you choose from a selection of his seasonal combinations. All the flavors from each course are enhanced through pizza oven. They were not prepared by being sauced or overly salted. You could really tell how fresh all the ingredients were. And his bread/ pizza dough is **chefs kiss** delicious! My family and I truly enjoyed our meal. We did wish, however, that we sat downstairs at the counter to be closer to the chef and to watch the preparations. (We were seated upstairs.) But we still had a wonderful time. I also really appreciated the beautiful dishware that came with each course. And my husband really enjoyed the staff's (his name was Hiro) recommendations for alcoholic drinks to pair with the courses. Overall, 100% recommend this restaurant. We left very full and even took leftovers back to the hotel.

The atmosphere and service was pleasant, you had to book months in advance so there were only a handful of people there. However the food was a little underwhelming. Some dishes tasted a little odd and it was hard to finish at times, the fish we felt was particularly dry. The only thing we really enjoyed was the pizza, it was the best pizza I've ever had. Maybe we were unlucky with the seasonal ingredients right now.

My favorite restaurant in the whole world! I've always been a pizza lover but Chef Imai takes it to another level entirely. You begin with a simple appetizer of his pizza dough and end with a pizza of your choice. Each and every food item he serves is cooked by him and has been carefully sourced locally or personally picked by Chef Imai. My entire group was amazed by the quality and flavors of each course. Some of the memorable items were the roasted edamame on the branch, roasted tomato, seared bonito, and fig panna cotta. But star of the show was definitely the pizza dough! Nothing beats the pizza dough flavor and texture. It's even better than Italy and I dream of dining here again. My group of 6 was so lucky to get a reservation when the site was down and we had the entire half of the restaurant to ourselves. Chef Imai brought out each dish himself and also signed a few copies of his book for us. Dining here was the perfect ending of my trip to my favorite city in Japan. This review was made in connection with a Toast promotion.

Years ago I walked by this place on Philosopher's Path in Kyoto, and wondered if it was a restaurant or a local hosting a dinner party. It had a distinct and memorable vibe. Fast forward 7 years and I'm watching Chef's Table on Netflix and was delighted to have my answer. Reservations are tough but if you love special, real experiences, it's worth the effort. After a week of eating out while traveling through Japan, dining at Monk felt like comfort food. Real. Exquisite in the simplicity. Beautifully executed. Chef Yoshihiro is a talented and very humble man. We're delighted to have experienced his talent on this trip to Kyoto.

Amazing dinner. Incredibly well-planned and executed. Service was fantastic. Ambiance amazing on the Philosophers Path. Don't believe the naysayers. It was fantastic from start to finish! The pictures are completely out of order

I watched the series and read the mixed reviews. I had three simple expectations. 1. Perfectly roasted vegetables with light sauces that will still let the vegetables shine. 2. Rustic and simple. 3. Incredible pizza dough. All three of my expectations were met. It was a fun experience. The staff was very accommodating to my wine requests. The pizza alone was incredible. Tons of food, so come hungry. Also, I didn't even know I liked beets, until today.

This is a gem of a restaurant in Kyoto. Situated along a tiny street of homes outside the main city, Monk delivers vegetable forward eclectic cuisine with a focus on the wood burning oven. The pizza is spectacular. They don't have a wine list. Rather they match your taste with what they're opening that day. Service is great. A must when in Kyoto. Plan ahead. You'll need a Resy.

This is a must if you are in Kyoto. We got our reservation two months in advance when they went live and grabbed some counter seats. A truly memorable meal with a great and friendly chef and staff. I could go on for days about how great this place is, you just need to go and experience it firsthand.

It is appropriate that the Japanese word for complain is Monk-u because that is what you will do when you leave, overcharged, full of bread and burnt vegetables after hours of waiting for your food. It's the kind of place people assume is good because of something they saw on the internet. But inasmuch as if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, if you have a pizza oven, that's the extent of your repertoire. It was a joke. We were served dried up vegetables that we chewed like jerky. The first pizza was meh and didn't improve after serial courses of the same thing. THE SAME THING! You couldn't even cut through some of the food. The last straw was that there was dirt on the mushrooms--that manure-y bitter taste. I get that you might brush mushrooms instead of washing them but you need to do it thoroughly. Service was absurdly slow and clumsy. I couldn't believe someone recommended this place to us. It was the stupidest experience I've had in a long time. (It turned out that they'd just watched the tv show.) Winelist was meh, but you kept drinking because there was nothing else to do. It was excurciatingly awkward, boring and unending. It was not just us--a party of six (seated at the farmhouse table) alongside us was laughing in an ironic way because the meal was such a joke. The courses took forever and everyone looked at each other when each course arrived as if to say, "This is really what we waited for?" The downstairs dining room was full of tourists. It is NOT as some have befuddlingly compared here, a KAISEKI meal. Kyoto is full of excellent restaurants, many of which are well, well under the tab you'll pay for the menu at Monk--some are exquisite, some are simple but well executed. Do not waste your time, your money or your opportunities at this place. There is nothing to redeem an overpriced, poorly executed, unimaginative meal of pizza dough and dried vegetables. I imagine the place is geared toward tourists who visit the city, eat there once and think maybe the place had an off night. It has never been good.

Food Art. This is a place you go to experience a whole host of food items and flavors that one would not normally put together. A very attentive staff that is well trained by the owner who also takes great strides to serve his customers with a divine meal. I don't see how you can go wrong here. I found this place on a whim and was fortunately able to get a reservation with one days notice. Enjoy!

We had an upcoming trip to Japan and one of our destinations was Kyoto. After watching the Netflix series we attempted to make resys at Monk. We were able to score one. We were all excited for the experience but felt there were highs and lows...more lows imo. Let me start by saying the chefs pizza dough is on point and ridiculously good. If you get one thing in this experience it is that the pizza crust is perfected. Things we enjoyed: - The starter which is an intro to his pizza dough along with a soup. It was a pureed sweet onion soup served cold which was a great compliment to the pizza crust - Semi dried tomato. Best tomato I've ever eaten. - margherita pizza - pork ragout pizza - loquat dessert - had many flavor profiles Everything else was too simple. There were 2 fish dishes. The bonito tataki had a nice smoke flavor but it was ordinary. Cucumber that accompanied it was bland n plain. The seabass with carrot was also just plain and tasted like it was just steamed n charred. Roasted vegetables tasted like just that. One of the pizza we picked had the baby silver fish and although it was different the flavor profile was meh. If you are just into just tasting just how fresh ingredients are prepped then this may be the place for you. It's essentially earthy imo. Don't come expecting any culinary magic.... Although the pizza crust is insanely good. 2.5 stars.

I learned a new Japanese word yesterday: すごい. It means 'amazing' which is how I would describe Monk. The Yelp listing incorrectly pins this place as "Pizza" but it is more like a modern spin on the traditional kaiseki dinner from an up-and-coming master chef who uses a pizza oven for each of the 7 courses. I found out about this place after reading the WSJ May 28, 2018 article (search it up). If you are coming to Kyoto, have your hotel book you into this cozy, intimate space that only seats 14 - it is well worth the cost and the trek. PRO TIP: They only accept reservations 2 months out - so have them book EXACTLY at the 2-month mark so you get a counter seat to watch the magic happen. 7 courses at ¥7000.

A real pleasure to eat at Monk. Everything thing we tasted was of superb quality. If we lived in Kyoto, this would be a restaurant we would visit again and again. Wonderful cocktails. Never had a better mojito in my life. Each dish was creative, delicious, and made with the freshest possible ingredients. The special pizza made with Japanese flour would totally win over an Italian style pizza any day! Monk might be the best restaurant we have ever eaten at and we live in NYC, where there are a lot of fantastic options, so that says a lot. Couldn't recommend more! We will be following Monk to watch it flourish. What a hidden gem!

Stunning! Delicate flavor explosion. The food is too varied to list and the menu changes all the time. Most of the dishes are roasted, baked or charred in an Italian wood burning oven - sunchokes almost blackened, sliced delicately and sprinkled with course salt. Striped Benito drizzled with olive oil and beets sliced so thin you can see light through them. Listing the ingredients and the dishes don't do it justice. You have to experience it, watch the chef move around the kitchen in that certain rhythm that chefs have and last but not least, taste his art. That's what this is - art. Put it in your mouth and enjoy.

Monk's dining experience is one that imprints its guests in such a way that it becomes the new standard of what you will measure your special meals against. From the walk along the Philosopher's Walk to reach the restaurant to the enchanting layout of the open kitchen, you will feel you entered a different space and time when you sit at your seat. The progression of the coursed meal and its ingredients reveal themselves at a poetic pace that simulates the experience of foraging in Japan. I absolutely love it here.

This place is amazing. Every course was beautiful and delicious. The fresh local vegetables were outstanding and the wine/sake selection kicked ass. The pizza is great but be prepared for a meal that is much much more than just pizza.

More than pizza, more than local, culled flavors and dishes, an experience. If you can get a reservation, take a couple of hours and go.

Incredible dining experience. Small, intimidate setting in a beautiful part of Kyoto. Chef Yoshihiro was a delight, and made us feel completely at home. The fresh grilled vegetables, fish and pizzas were delicious and the price points were more than reasonable. Only negative was the wine selection was hit or miss, but otherwise the experience was perfect. Would highly recommend!

Excellent food and the chef is very friendly. One of the highlights of our time in Kyoto.