Umu

Billed as the UK’s only true Kyoto restaurant, Umu specializes in kaiseki cuisine, which originates from Japan’s ancient capital, and is the most refined and expressive way to serve Japanese food—not to mention the most expensive. Waiters thoroughly explain the complicated menus, and then quietly disappear only to return with plate after plate of high culinary art taken to an extreme by head chef Yoshinori Ishii, who once worked at Japan’s Michelin three-starred Kyoto Kitcho. Dramatic dark wood interiors are moodily matched with low lighting and velvet banquettes, an atmosphere fit for the undeniably well to do crowd.