We went to Kanazawa for two nights. Turned out to be just right.
Kanazawa is famous for its geisha quarters and its samurai history, and of course its gold leaf ice cream. The city makes 99 percent of Japan’s gold leaf.
We chose to stay at The Hotel Sanraku Kanazawa, Suite Twin Room with Club Lounge access. Fairly new, opened in December 2022, and the price was modest for a suite. And the location OK.
We struggled a little to find restaurants in Kanazawa, so we booked a dinner buffet at the hotel, something new they had started for dinner service.
We had also booked dinner at Fil d’Or. For lunch, nothing booked. Which is never a good idea when you are hungry in the middle of the tourist herd.
Let us start with the hotel. To get the picture, this is a bus hotel with tourists. Sleep and drink and sometimes queue.
Our room was OK. Hard beds, the kind you sleep on, not in.
The Club Lounge was surprisingly good. In fact, what they served there looked better than the buffet. A nice selection of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, nice snacks as well. We saw people eating there before we went out to Fil d’Or. Too bad they did not serve breakfast there.
Instead it is on the first floor in the big dining room, Kizahashi. A big buffet, heavily focused on Japanese food. If that is your thing, you are covered. For me, not so much.
And it is busy. The kind of place where a sign beside the lift tells you how busy breakfast will be, 07-07.45 normal and so on.
Feed the tourists before they leave on the buses.
We had spent the day being tourists ourselves, walking around and avoiding any gold flakes, ice cream, chocolate and even a gold mask to make your face shine like the sun. Trying to find lunch, we went into the first place we found, a pizza and beer place.
We had a pizza and of course a beer. The Neapolitan style pizza did what it should. You do not go here for an amazing pizza, you go here to rest your legs and get something in your stomach. Like the six schoolkids to our right, on their lunch break.
I saw a familiar photo on the wall, so I asked where it was taken. Sweden. The owner learned to brew his beer in Sweden.
Did not see that coming.
Oriental Brewing Higashiyama
3-2-22 Higashiyama, Kanazawa, Ishikawa 920-0831
Website
Afterwards we went for the sake tasting at Fukumitsuya Higashi, the shop of Kanazawa’s oldest brewery, in business since 1625. They make only junmai, rice, water and koji, nothing added.
I am not usually a fan of sake. My wife is. It turned out to be a really nice little event.
We tried seven sakes. Each of us chose a flight of three, all different, and we asked to try one extra. A note explaining each bottle was put in front of us, and they served some delicious snacks on the side.
The extra one was the only one I could appreciate. It came home with us. Kagatobi Ikazuchi Issen, a junmai daiginjo with the rice polished down to 35 percent.
So clean, so fresh, the perfect aperitif back home when we miss Japan.
We took a taxi, it stopped in a small dark street and dropped us off. As so many times before in Japan, finding the restaurant is a guessing game. But this was new. Nothing here signalled a restaurant. They only moved here in May 2025.
Think I saw a sign saying wine bar at the bottom of what seemed like a fire escape, a spiral staircase, and thought, what can go wrong, I can ask them. It turned out to be the restaurant.
This is supposed to be trendy, by Kanazawa standards.
It was cosy. Six or seven tables, a bar counter, and a counter with seats in front of the open kitchen. From the ceiling, thousands of straws hanging, slowly moving in the air.
The straws turned out to be thread, about 30,000 of them, dyed in an earth colour. Fil d’Or is French for golden thread.
Couples beside us signalled this was a date night restaurant, and some families. We were the only tourists. The music was classic hits from the 90s.
Menu of course in Japanese. And it was here I learned that Google Translate was rubbish.
I simply took pictures of all the pages and sent them to Claude, who wrote the whole thing in our language, including the prices in Swedish kronor. Then it was an easy pointing game. Kore that, and kore that.
I asked to see the wine cellar, one word they understood. It is a small room after the entrance. He just opened the door and pointed to the bottles, I understood I could choose myself, a price tag hanging on every bottle neck, descriptions of course in Japanese.
Then he closed the door and left. Leaving me to a decision.
It took too long, and when I came back with a bottle my wife had been worried that something had happened. I had chosen a Bourgogne Pinot Noir 2022 from Bruno Desaunay-Bissey, which was perhaps a little too light.
Anyway, this restaurant leans to French cooking. We ordered garlic bread with a duck fat crust, a penne arrabbiata with smoked bacon, and an olive beef steak. What we did not know: it was all for sharing. So my wife finished the arrabbiata, and I had to wait for the steak.
The problem with this popular restaurant, to us, was the people running it. Young, and at the time three or four of them, doing everything. Cooking, bar service, attending to the guests. They were struggling to keep up.
It was a mishmash. And it showed on the plate, and in the time it took to get the food out.
The arrabbiata, yes, I was starving, so I tried it. Better flavours than Il Ristorante – Niko Romito in Tokyo, even if the penne was not homemade.
The beans and roasted potatoes with the steak were really good. Frankly, the steak itself, pre-cut, would embarrass any Japanese chef. It was tough, hard to cut. Chewy.
I thought of the old expression, if you cannot cut it, do not eat it.
It was OK but no more.
The damage for Table 6 landed on 23,500 yen, forget a detailed receipt. Kind of steep, but my fault, I chose the wine. Brought the bill to the bar, handed it over and paid. Afterwards we were standing in the dark again, waiting for a taxi.
My mind went to, do they not have bears here? They do.
Fil d’Or
2F, 6-9 Kiguramachi, Kanazawa, Ishikawa 920-0988
Instagram
Reservations
The next night we had planned for the dinner buffet at the hotel. Entering, loud, a lot of guests. Too loud to sit and enjoy a dinner.
I asked the waiter for a quiet seat beside the bar, which was empty. Instead we were shown to a separate room with a couple of other guests. Meanwhile my wife took a tour around the buffet to check it out.
When I saw her face I understood, no words needed. My wife recognised some dishes from the breakfast. It just looked unappetising.
Shame, because we had looked forward to trying some Japanese food.
An excuse and we left. Restaurant number three, and we never ate there. Sitting in the lobby. Where to now? ChatGPT and Claude doing their best.
But my wife pulled a rabbit out of her hat. She knew a yakiniku place she had looked at back home.
We asked the hotel reception to call Midouen and see if they had a table for two that evening. They did. There was just one question. Would we mind sitting on the floor?
Of course not.
The restaurant turned out to be a couple of minutes walk from our hotel. We had no idea what to expect, except that it was yakiniku and we would be grilling the meat ourselves at the table.
We felt at home the moment we walked in. Some restaurants have that atmosphere. Unpretentious and welcoming.
We sat at floor level around a low table, with a sunken space beneath it for our legs. Rather than sitting cross-legged on the floor, we could put our feet down, much as we would on chairs.
We thought the man in the kitchen and the woman looking after us were husband and wife. Two young women were helping with the service, perhaps their daughter and a friend. We never asked, and perhaps we got it all wrong. But that was the feeling.
Midouen dates back to 1970, and the meat is its pride. Its speciality is Noto beef, the local wagyu from Ishikawa, the prefecture that includes Kanazawa. Choosing the meat, preparing it and cutting it properly are at the heart of what they do.
My wife ordered a cocktail, and I went for a glass of red wine. There was only one on the menu, which made the decision rather easy.
It arrived perfectly chilled and turned out to be one of the best red wines we drank during our trip. I have no idea what it was called. The price was ridiculously low, and it was the perfect match for what was coming.
We ordered three different cuts of beef, a plate of vegetables, kimchi and rice. Everything was good, the kimchi and the greens were fresh, but the meat was what stood out.
Soon we were in meat heaven.
The beef was beautifully cut, with fantastic marbling. The quality was extraordinary. We grilled it ourselves, piece by piece, and ordered more of the ribeye.
It was the best beef we had during our trip to Japan.
But the meat was only part of what made the evening.
Sometimes it is also the mood you are in. There we were in Kanazawa, eating wonderful beef, drinking a red wine I knew nothing about and simply enjoying life. We were happy, and sometimes that is what makes everything complete.
Sometimes that happens in a restaurant with three Michelin stars.
Sometimes around the corner.
We loved Kanazawa and would not have wanted to miss it. It is smaller, quieter than the big cities. It has a charm of its own.
But we think one time is enough. If we go back, it is for that restaurant we did not plan.
