Kaiseki Yu-Zen Hashimoto

As I mentioned earlier, me & Dave went to Kaiseki Yu-Zen Hashimoto to celebrate Valentine's day! Unfortunately customers are not permitted to take pictures in the restaurant, but their website is full of wonderful pictures and videos.

The tiny, but charming restaurant seats a maximum of 6 people and reservations need to be made well in advance, as the menu is catered to the amount of persons planned to eat at the restaurant each day.

It was definitely an incredible culinary experience and worth the money. The food was fantastic and you could really taste and feel the amount of passion and love for food the owner Hashimoto has.

We enjoyed a 6 course meal that was made up of mostly imported food from Japan. Most of the things we had never tried before, but everything had a very familiar and comforting taste.

At the end of the meal Hashimoto himself came out to thank us and chat with us. He chatted us about the food, the cuisine of Kaiseki and his experiences. We learned that a minimum of 10 years is required to master Kaiseki and the artform includes a more formal tea ceremony and even Ikebana floral arrangement.

I`m sad that he will soon be closing the Mississauga location and moving to the Toronto location in the fall, but I am happy that he will be continuing bringing this very unique and lovely experience to the area.

I don`t think my short review does this dining experience justice, but I definitely encourage you to check out their website and the below mentioned Toronto Life magazine to learn more about the art of Kaiseki.

For a comprehensive review, check out the article found in Toronto Life written by James Chatto.