How To Spend 24 Hours In Kyoto

I've lost count of how many times people have told me Kyoto is "too touristy now." They're wrong, or at least they're doing it wrong. Yes, the Arashiyama bamboo grove is a zoo by 10am. Yes, Gion fills up with people holding selfie sticks pointed at women in rented kimonos. But Kyoto still remains one of the most satisfying places on earth to spend a day. You just have to know where to go and, crucially, when.

Here's how I'd do it.

8am — Nishiki Market

Get here early. I mean it! [in big, bold “I warned you” letters.] By 11am this place is shoulder-to-shoulder tourists and the magic is gone; at 8, when the vendors are just pulling up their shutters and the light is still soft, it's something else entirely. Nishiki stretches five covered blocks and has been feeding Kyoto since the 17th century. They don't call it the city's kitchen for nothing.

Walk slowly, and take your time to observe everything around you. Eat the yuba — silken tofu skin pulled fresh, with soy and a bit of dashi. Have a mochi skewer. You can also get a bowl of ochazuke: dashi broth ladled over rice, pickled vegetables, a piece of grilled fish. There's also a wonderful Japanese sake store somewhere in the mix here.

If you want something more indulgent, Micasadeco & Café is right next door, and their Japanese fluffy pancakes are worth knowing about.

10am — Higashiyama

Then, you head east. The Higashiyama ward — Kiyomizu-dera temple, the stone-paved lanes of Sannenzaka and Ninenzaka, Hokan-ji's pagoda cutting into the sky above it all — is non-negotiable Kyoto. Yes, everyone goes. But you go anyway.

The trick is the same as Nishiki: be there by 10, not noon. The Chinese tour buses arrive in force around 11:30am and the narrow streets become genuinely impassable. Before that, in the quiet of the morning, walking down Sannenzaka past the ceramics shops and the small matcha places and the smell of incense drifting down from the temple, it's one of those stretches of city that makes you understand why people keep coming back to Japan.

Kiyomizu-dera itself is worth it: the wooden stage, built without nails, cantilevered out over the hillside with the city spread below — it earns its reputation.

1pm — Head for Lunch, Get A Ramen Bowl

Menya Gokkei is for people who want their ramen thick and full of MSG. The broth is so thick you almost eat it rather than drink it. It's deeply unusual and extremely good. If you've had every ramen style going and want something that will actually surprise you, go here.

If you want what I think is simply the best broth in Kyoto, go to Musoshin in Gion. Clear, elegant, precise — the kind of bowl that makes you go “mmmhhmmmm” after the first sip. This is the one.

2pm — Options: The River, or the Walk, or the Shops

The afternoon is yours to calibrate. The walkways along the Kamo River are genuinely underrated, peaceful, good for a slow coffee and watching Kyoto happen around you. Black Cat Coffee is the one I’d recommend.

If you want something quieter still, the Philosopher's Walk runs along a smaller canal to the east. In spring, the cherry blossoms here are beautiful.

4pm — Head to Fushimi Inari

You know what this looks like. The thousands of vermillion torii gates winding up Mount Inari, donated by businesses over centuries as offerings to the god of rice and good fortune. You've seen the photographs and you should go anyway, because photographs don't give you the feeling of the place: the way it goes quiet once you're up past the first few hundred gates and most people have turned back for their buses.

Don't walk to the top; there's no view up there and you'll be exhausted for dinner. Walk maybe 80% of the trail, to the main viewpoint where the city spreads out below in the dying light. Get there before the sun goes down. That's the shot and, more importantly, that's the moment.

8pm — Dinner

Two options, depending on what kind of night you want.

Gion Mikaku is a steakhouse in the district with excellent Kobe beef.

Alternatively, Gion Shirakawa Namisato is a great kaiseki restaurant along the canal. The seasonal courses here are to die for and the windows here look out over to the water and the old lanterns in the narrow stone streets.

10pm — The Bars

Pontocho Alley after dark is Kyoto being its best secret self. The narrow lane running parallel to the Kamo River, the unmarked doors, the jazz leaking out from behind curtains — it's the part of the city that doesn't make it onto the temple itineraries.

Beatle Momo is the one I always come back to. Fifteen seats, a bow-tied owner called Momo who is both your DJ and your bartender, and over 3,000 records on the walls that you're allowed to pick from. The whisky selection runs from the accessible to the genuinely rare.

Bee's Knees is harder to find and to get into, which is the point. Look for a yellow door in the Kiyamachi district with a sign reading "The Book Store." It's been on Asia's 50 Best Bars list four times and it deserves every mention. The aesthetic is Prohibition-era speakeasy soundtracked by '90s hip-hop. Order the Truffle Bee's Knees.