Tohka Saikan is as much a building as a restaurant: a Spanish Baroque landmark on the west bank of the Kamogawa at Shijo bridge, completed in 1926 as the Western restaurant Yaomasa. It was designed by William Merrell Vories — the only restaurant he ever built — and it still runs a 1924 Otis elevator, said to be the oldest working elevator in Japan.
What you eat
After the war, in 1945, Yu Yongshan reopened the house as a Beijing-style Chinese restaurant, and Beijing cuisine is what it serves today, plated inside those ornate riverfront rooms. The food shares the stage with the setting — the demand is for a table on the Kamogawa side, where the river runs below the windows. Private rooms are available for those who want the grand interior to themselves.
The building
Vories' facade is a piece of Kyoto's modern history, and the hand-operated Otis lift — a century old and still carrying guests upstairs — turns arrival into part of the meal. Few restaurants anywhere let you ride a working antique to your table. Sit river-side at dusk and the Kamogawa, the bridge, and the Baroque stonework do most of the work.
Best for
Travelers who read a city through its buildings. Here the architecture, the elevator, and the river are the reason to book, with a generous Beijing kitchen to match.
