Perhaps the most famous restaurant in Japan, Kitcho is in the western outskirts of Kyoto in Arashiyama. Founded in 1938, Kunio Tokuoka is the current head chef, serving the most elaborate formal kaiseki cuisine. There is no communal dining room here. You will enter a private room and be served by waitresses in traditional costume, and will never see another diner during your visit. You are served from exquisite serving dishes, many of them antiques. The unusually large rooms, with views over private gardens, partly account for the prices here, which are not for the faint-hearted. However the ingredients are flawless and the overall experience is like entering another world.

See Andy Hayler's blog post: http://tinyurl.com/zczmefx