The Restaurant of Lost Recipes

The Kamogawa Diner opens its doors again, and recovering a half-remembered meal matters far more here than solving a crime. Hisashi Kashiwai continues his Kyoto-set series in The Restaurant of Lost Recipes with fresh visitors and fresh requests, each one a small puzzle of taste, memory and timing. The father-and-daughter team question, research and cook until the plate in front of the customer matches the one held in their head. The book reads comfortably on its own, though it sits inside the wider Kamogawa Food Detectives sequence, and its writing on traditional Japanese cooking is a large part of the appeal. In brief: • Part of the Kamogawa Food Detectives series, readable as a stand-alone • Short linked cases rather than one continuous plot • Detailed writing on traditional Japanese dishes and ingredients • Emotional weight carried by ordinary people and ordinary meals Recommended for readers of translated Japanese fiction and gentle literary mysteries, from Boipoka.