10 Best Sushi Restaurants in Kyoto: Top Must-Try Places

Historically, Kyoto was never known for sushi. As a landlocked prefecture, the old imperial capital had no access to ports, making it difficult to transport fresh seafood inland — unlike the bayside Tokyo, where sushi exploded in popularity as a “fast food” in the late Edo era. 

However, the wonders of modern refrigeration and rapid mechanized transportation means that sushi is now freely available in the historic former capital. In fact, some of Japan’s finest sushi restaurants are widely recognized to be in Kyoto, even among the most discerning members of Japan’s sushi connoisseur community. 

Still, Kyoto never developed its own “style” of sushi, unlike the ubiquitous Edomae school that arose from the Tokyo Bay waterfront. As such, even Kyoto’s finest sushi restaurants are still by and large from the Edomae school, due to most of their chefs having learned their craft in Tokyo.

So if you’ve got a hankering for fish over rice after weaving through the orange torii gates of the Fushimi-Inari Shrine, or wandering the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest in the twilight, we’ve got just the guide for you. 

Sushi Gion Matsudaya is a former Michelin-starred restaurant tucked away in a back alley near Hanamikoji Street, in the geisha district of Gion. While it no longer holds its one star, this has done little to stem the tide of visitors: years later, reviews online continue to rave about the immaculate skill of head chef and owner Matsudaya Kazunori, and his wonderful hospitality.

Originally from the neighboring prefecture of Shiga, Chef Matsudaya started his restaurant in Gion in 2007, and since then, his seven counter seats have been full every day. 

Many restaurants have come and gone, each offering Edomae-style sushi, but Gion Matsudaya remains a mainstay of the Kyoto sushi scene, delighting guests with nigiri and various dishes, including his famous eggs, which are his signature.

Worried about interacting with the man himself? Not to worry — a year in New York has given Chef Matsudaya all he needs to charm his customers in English. Grab a glass of sake at his recommendation; it’s said that he has some of the rarest sake in the city, if not the country.

Find out more: Where Gourmet Meets Geisha: 9 of Gion’s Best Restaurants

The former holder of a Michelin star, Gion Sushi Tadayasu is arguably one of the most renowned sushi restaurants in the whole of Kyoto. 

Set in what used to be a townhouse just off Hanamikoji Street, Kyoto’s most famous geisha district, guests ducking under the noren curtain are immediately wowed by the intricacy of the traditional interiors, boasting walls inlaid with wooden carvings and a ceiling with a carved wooden lattice.

But the only thing that Chef Tadayasu Morita — a 20-year-plus veteran of Tokyo’s sushi scene — puts more detail into is the sushi he sculpts by hand. He only uses red vinegar for his shari rice, in true Edomae fashion, using a stronger variety for fatty fish like maguro. 

His signature dish is a generous helping of shiro-ebi white shrimp, with a dollop of caviar on top. All this is served with his characteristic friendly demeanor — so disarming, in fact, that many visitors are taken off guard. 

Where Tokyo is famous for sushi, Kyoto is far more famous for traditional kappo and kaiseki multicourse dining — the Michelin Guide has listed a staggering 118 of them in Kyoto.

Sushi Rakumi is the descendant of one of these restaurants, the indomitable three-starred Gion Sasaki, which is possibly the most famous kaiseki restaurant in existence. 

Situated on the banks of the Shirakawa River, on the northern side of the Gion district, Rakumi’s Michelin star (an award that surprised nobody, given its parentage) brings flocks of visitors to its counter, but especially so in spring, where the dramatic sight of blushing cherry blossoms and swaying willow trees line the river.

It doesn’t matter how far he has to travel: Chef Nomura Kazuya sources his seafood from the local Nishiki Market, or from Osaka’s Central Fish Market, or even as far as Yaizu Port in Shizuoka. 

Nothing but the best goes into his sushi; you can really taste the freshness in his inventive signature, the abalone risotto, which uses abalone stewed for more than six hours, making it incredibly tender. The dish also uses red-vinegared rice in place of the usual risotto rice, like a giant serving of nigiri. 

Not everyone can be a sushi chef — not everyone has the time to spend honing the skills to shape a perfectly shaped nugget of shari rice, or cross-hatching a tiny piece of bigfin squid.

At AWOMB though, you can at least live out the fantasy of being one. AWOMB specializes in what it calls “teori sushi”, or, literally, hand-woven sushi. 

Guests are presented with a huge array of 50 ingredients, sourced locally from around the Kyoto area, from various types of seafood to meat to the vegetables that Kyoto’s famously pure spring water lends its flavor to, and allowed to craft their own sushi. 

In the minimalist space of the main Karasuma outlet, there are no rules; the layout of the store is extremely sparse, like a blank canvas, representing the infinite possibilities of teori sushi. So get out there and bring those possibilities to life. 

When you think of sushi, you usually think of the iconic nigiri, a slice of fish atop a lump of shari rice; or maybe the gunkan, a flat cylinder, placed upright, of toppings and rice encircled by a sheet of nori; or perhaps the maki, a long roll of sushi usually sliced into six or eight sections.

The sushi at Kashiwai is none of these things. A recipient of the Michelin Bib Gourmand — meaning food that’s both delicious and cost-effective — Kashiwai serves what’s traditionally called “temari-zushi”; ball-shaped, bite-sized sushi that are unique to Kyoto. 

Temari-zushi are shaped the way they are so geisha could eat them in a single bite without smudging their lipstick or makeup. Renaming these little balls “tsumami-zushi”, or “snack sushi”, Kashiwai incorporates local ingredients into their menu, such as bamboo shoots or matsutake mushroom. 

Never mind the fact that it’s a Michelin restaurant; the fact that it’s so drastically different from the Edomae standard makes it worth a try in the first place. The hand-drawn menu is particularly charming — and in English, too.

Find out more: Find Your New Favorite Among These Different Types of Sushi

Another Kyoto institution, Izuu has been serving sushi for almost 250 years and eight  generations. To avoid spoilage as it traveled southward from Wakasa City in Fukui Prefecture, mackerel was preserved in vinegar and lightly fermented. Wrapped in konbu kelp and placed atop rice, this was the birth of saba sushi, or literally “mackerel sushi”.

Izuu expands on this by serving saba-sugata sushi; a whole roll of saba sushi that is made from an entire filet of mackerel. This is a popular souvenir that locals often take away several boxes of. 

However, the best experience can be had dining in, where visitors are granted access to the whole menu, and can explore the whole gamut of fermented sushi that Izuu offers. 

In his interview with the Michelin Guide, former hurdler Chef Kawano Mitsutaka likens sushi-making to hurdling: that both require the practitioner to deliver the best performance in the shortest possible time. 

It’s been nine years since opening — not exactly short — but Chef Kawano’s restaurant, Sushi Kawano, has newly received the Michelin nod in 2024 to join the ranks of the Michelin Selected. 

It’s only a matter of time before he receives his first star, so his regulars have already started flooding his reservations before he becomes fully fledged — which will make a seat at his counter an order of magnitude more difficult to secure.

The restaurant is a 10-minute walk from Kitaoji Station, which is where one of the previous entries on this list — Kashiwai — can be found. Its location near the Kamo River makes it a popular spot for sightseers looking to walk off a sumptuous meal on the riverbanks, be it on a warm sunny afternoon or evening.

Like its fellow Michelin Bib Gourmand awardees above, Izuu, Izugen similarly specializes in Kyoto’s traditional preserved sushi, saba sushi, and saba-sugata sushi as well. 

Chef Ishida Yasuyuki works almost silently behind the counter at his shop near Nishiki Market, a third-generation chef whose operation has been delighting customers for over 100 years; the complex flavors and simple presentation of each sushi speak for themselves. 

Saba sushi aside, the peculiarly shaped hakozushi, or “box sushi”, is an easy favorite as well. Interestingly, the rice is cooked in dashi stock, giving it its own umami and a completely different dimension of flavor, especially compared to standard Edomae-style sushi. 

His taciturn nature doesn’t mean he’s unfriendly though: take it from his regulars, who still receive personal deliveries from the man himself by bike, even in this day and age. 

Not to be confused with a similarly-named restaurant originally from Tokyo (called Kyoto Sushi Matsumoto, near Karasuma-Shichijo), Sushi Matsumoto is a relatively recent addition to the Michelin Guide, first receiving its star in 2022 — and making it one of the last remaining Michelin-starred sushi restaurants in Kyoto.

Like many of the finest restaurants in Kyoto, Sushi Matsumoto is located in the geisha district of Gion. 

Originally from Kanazawa, head chef Matsumoto Daisuke trained in the Tokyo restaurant Shinbashi Shimizu before falling in love with Kyoto on a trip there, eventually deciding to set up shop there on the advice of one of his guests from Osaka.

Now one of the premier sushi restaurants in Kyoto, Chef Matsumoto delights Edomae sushi enthusiasts with his 17-item menu, including some of his signatures like straw-grilled skipjack tuna sprinkled with spring onion. Most of his seafood still comes from his suppliers in Tsukiji Market, truly bringing a taste of the new capital to the old. 

Formerly called Sushi Saeki, this restaurant used to be located in the grounds of Nanzenji Temple in 2018, but has since relocated to a new, more central location somewhere halfway between Nijo Castle and Marutamachi Station. 

It may have given up the idyllic surroundings of the temple grounds, but it brings with it the legacy of quality sushi it has had since its beginnings in Osaka, where it was known to be among the top restaurants in Kitashinchi — no mean feat for Kansai’s greatest concentration of fine dining establishments. 

One thing is certain though: the restaurant is still incredibly difficult to secure a reservation for. Not even the expansion of the restaurant to an additional Tokyo branch — a longtime dream for its founder Saeki Hiroshi — has reduced the number of people looking to reserve a seat. 

There is no waitlist, either; just a lot of fevered prayers among those that hope to one day duck beneath its entrance’s curtain. It’s strangely fitting for a city with as many sacred sites as Kyoto does.

For a closer look into the world of Kyoto’s cuisine, explore the best omakase sushi restaurants, the best Michelin Star restaurants, and what to eat in Kyoto. Or simply browse through our list of all sushi restaurants in Kyoto.

As you might expect from a list of the best sushi restaurants in Kyoto, it’s not always easy to get a seat — especially if you spontaneously decide you’re hungry for quality sushi.

That’s where byFood comes in, helping you reserve a restaurant without needing any Japanese! Make a reservation at sushi restaurants in Kyoto.

Other than Kyoto’s underrated sushi scene, Kyoto is known for multicourse kaiseki cuisine, traditional tea ceremonies and wagashi sweets, and the vegetarian-friendly Buddhist cuisine of shojin ryori.

Kyoto isn’t really known for street food in the same way as some places, such as Osaka, so it borrows many of these most popular street foods. For example, there’s the bite-sized takoyaki octopus balls, hearty okonomiyaki cabbage pancakes and deep-fried anago conger eel.

Discover Kyoto’s street foods.