Miyamasou Earns Three Stars in the Michelin Guide Kyoto Osaka 2026

The MICHELIN Guide Kyoto Osaka 2026 was announced on 23 April 2026, and it gave Kyoto a new three-star restaurant for the first time in six years. Miyamasou, an inn in the mountains north of the city, was promoted from two stars. Kyoto now has six three-star restaurants and Osaka three.

Miyamasou is not in Kyoto as most visitors know it. It stands in the hamlet of Hanase, more than an hour’s drive into the forested hills, beside a mountain temple for whose pilgrims it was founded as a lodging in the late 19th century. It is the home of tsumikusa cooking, a cuisine of gathered plants: the menu is built from wild herbs and mountain vegetables picked that morning, river fish such as ayu and char, mushrooms, and game including bear and boar in the cold months. The guide described it as reflecting the changing seasons through foraged cuisine. Most guests come for lunch or dinner by the stream; a few stay the night in its handful of rooms.

Across the two cities, the guide lists 479 restaurants: nine with three stars, 31 with two and 139 with one, and 106 Bib Gourmands. Five restaurants were newly awarded two stars, four of them in Kyoto, and 19 received a first star, 12 in Kyoto and seven in Osaka. Thirteen restaurants hold the Green Star for sustainable practice, ten of them in Kyoto, a reflection of how closely the city’s cooking is tied to its farmers and its surrounding hills.

The service award went to Yuko Kuwamura of Kodaiji Wakuden in Kyoto, and the mentor chef award to Hideaki Matsuo of Kashiwaya in Osaka. A sommelier award was given in the region for the first time, to Miki Tanaka of Louise in Osaka.

Kyoto has more three-star restaurants than any city of its size in the world, almost all of them serving kaiseki. They are small and booked far ahead, often through the concierge of one of the city’s hotels, a subject covered in OKYTO’s guide to Kyoto’s new hotels. In Osaka, where two hotels of the first rank have opened since 2024, Four Seasons and Waldorf Astoria, the selection confirms a restaurant scene as strong as any in Japan outside Tokyo.