Velrosier (), Kyoto, JP

So it's been about a month since I visited Kyoto and in the time since I have visited a couple 2 stars back in the states (Atera, Gabriel Kreuther), and while both of those meals were enjoyable, I left them thinking about how VELROSIER was better. For only 20,000 yen ($~140 when I was there, a mere $125 today), VELROSIER offers a mammoth 14 dish lunch service that features plenty of fine dining staples including caviar, foie, and A5 Wagyu (admittedly less of a big deal in Japan but still). The dining rooms itself is beautiful and intimate with only 5 tables, and features an open kitchen that is manned by only 5 chefs/servers (!!). The meal is honestly too big (or maybe I am just too lazy) to talk about every dish so I'll highlight a few of my favorites. Due to the language barrier I did not fully understand a few of the dishes so I will do my best to describe them.

1. Sweetfish "coffee and chocolate" (first photo) – super creative way to open the meal, with a sweetfish soup and some kind of brownie that apparently had sweetfish in it as well. Perfect balance of sweet and savory.
2. Foie Gras Biscuit (fifth photo) – The dish itself was pretty good, but what stands out here is the presentation. The dish is presented in an ornate wooden box, and is surrounded by a bed of flowers and pine cones that make it one of the most aesthetically pleasing dishes I have ever seen.
3. Sea Bream (tenth photo) – Sea bream fried in sweet and sour sauce, then put on top of a cheese sauce. I was a little skeptical at first but man this was probably the most delicious dish of the meal.
4. A5 Wagyu (eleventh photo) – Basically just beef stiry fry except the beef is A5 wagyu and go figure, that does actually make a huge difference. Also note the portion size! At a restaurant in the states, this would be a supplement that would cost more than my entire meal here.
5. Apricot and Meringue (thirteenth photo) – This was generally just a great dessert, but the crazy thing about this dish was that when eating the meringue, there was an intense popping sensation in your mouth, almost exactly like the candy poprocks. It was probably the most fun I've had eating a dish at a fine dining restaurant, definitely made me feel like a kid again.

Now admittedly there were a few misses, my personal least favorite dishes being the bonito (seventh photo) and fried rice (twelfth photo), but I really cannot complain given how large the menu is, how small the team cooking it was, and how insanely good value the entire meal is. Cannot recommend enough for anyone visiting Kyoto, probably my favorite meal from my entire trip in Japan.