Hisashi Kashiwai
Pan Macmillan Australia
8 October 2025
208
Paperback
Contemporary Fiction
ARC via NetGalley
The Restaurant of Lost Recipes, translated from Japanese by Jesse Kirkwood, is the second book in the bestselling, mouth-watering Japanese sleuthing series for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold, and follows on from The Kamogawa Food Detectives.
Tucked away down a Kyoto backstreet lies the extraordinary Kamogawa Diner. Running this unique establishment are a father-daughter duo who serve more than just mouth-watering feasts.
The pair have reinvented themselves as 'food detectives', offering a service that goes beyond traditional dining. Through their culinary sleuthing, they reconstruct beloved dishes from the memories of their customers, creating a connection to cherished moments from the past.
Among those who seek an appointment include: a one-hit wonder pop star, finally ready to leave Tokyo and give up on her singing career, wants to try the tempura that she ate to celebrate her only successful record and a budding Olympic swimmer who desires the bento lunch box that his estranged father used to make him. The Kamogawa Diner doesn't just serve meals – it revives lost recipes and rekindles forgotten memories. It's a doorway to the past through the miracle of delicious food.
The Restaurant of Lost Recipes is an enjoyable read on some levels; however, I feel it suffers from the fate of many of these recent Japanese cosy series: the first book is great, with a fresh, fun idea and plenty of heart, but then the series keeps going and going, and there's nothing new to add. Sure, you can have new 'guests' seeking recipes, as is the case here, but the enjoyment of the premise gradually expires the more the idea is reused and reused. It's why I stopped Before the Coffee Gets Cold at book three. This second volume was a quick, light and easy read and a pleasant way to pass a couple of evenings when I was tired anyway and didn't want to have to concentrate on anything too heavily. However, I wasn't as caught up in the action as I had been with the first book, and I think that's because it was too much of the same thing again. I am giving 3.5 stars to this one. If you loved the first book, you probably will enjoy this one too, and if you didn't read book one, I think you could still pick this one up and follow well enough. For me, though, the magic of the first book wasn't quite recreated in this new volume.
I received this book as a free ARC via the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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