6 cafes to stop by on the Randen Kitano Line
What is "Arashiyama Railway"?
The Randen is a retro train that runs through the city of Kyoto. In 1910 (Meiji 43), a single track was opened between Shijo-Omiya Station and Arashiyama Station, and in 2020 it will be 110 years since then. It is the only tram still remaining in Kyoto. Currently, there are two lines in operation: the Arashiyama Main Line, which connects Shijo-Omiya Station and Arashiyama Station, and the Kitano Line, which runs from Katabiranotsuji Station to Kitanohakubaicho Station. The trains run at a leisurely pace at about 40km per hour over a 7.2km journey with 13 stations. There are many famous ancient temples dotted along the line, and the trains have long been loved by locals as well as tourists from Japan and abroad. The fare is a flat 220 yen for the entire line, and a one-day pass costs 500 yen and allows you to get on and off as many times as you like.
Arashiyama Railway's Kitano Line branches off from the Arashiyama Main Line at Katabiranotsuji Station and runs 3.8 km to Kitano-Hakubaicho Station, a 10-station line. As the station names suggest, there are many scenic spots and historical sites along the line. Unlike the Arashiyama Main Line, which runs on roads, the entire line is a track exclusively for trains. In particular, the section between Utano Station and Narutaki Station, which weaves through residential areas, is lined with cherry blossom trees, and in spring, the train ride is famous for passing through a tunnel of cherry blossoms. In late March, when the cherry blossoms bloom, and in mid-November, when the leaves change color, the train is lit up at night. Here are some recommended cafes along the line that you can stop by while visiting the scenic spots and historical sites.
＜7 recommended cafes on the Randen Kitano Line＞
1ever coffee Utano Station
Enjoy coffee made with fresh beans while gazing at the garden bathed in sunlight.
If you get off at Utano Station, one of the most quaint stations along the Arashiyama Line, and head out onto Ichijo-dori, you'll find a cafe in the lush greenery in front of the Fukuoji bus stop. Sunlight filters through the trees and pours into the retro one-story building. Forum Hikobae, a coffee bean processing and sales company, opened this cafe in 2017. They carefully hand-pick the finest fresh beans to remove any imperfections, grind them after receiving an order, and slowly hand-drip them. The Hikobae Sundae, a 1-go masu filled with soft serve ice cream, comes in two flavors, vanilla and matcha, and is garnished with a crunchy croquant.
Carefully selected coffee beans and mildly flavored sweets
The sweets that go with the rich, deep, yet clear coffee are all locally produced and made by people you know. The dark-colored pudding is made with fresh eggs from their own chicken farm. The black tea is also sourced from Wazuka Town, a tea-producing area of Kyoto, and during lemon harvest season, lemon tea made with pesticide-free lemons from Kyoto is also on the menu. Drip packs are also manufactured in an adjacent building to the store, so freshness is a specialty. The stylish packaging, handmade with eraser stamps, is perfect for small gifts.
- ever coffee Utano Station
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54 Utano Fukuojicho, Ukyo Ward, Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture MAP
Approximately 5 minutes walk from Utano Station on the Randen Kitano Line
12:00～16:30（L.O.16:15）
Saturdays, Sundays, public holidays, summer, New Year's holidays
080-2462-4511
None
2Omuro Sanowa Myoshinji Station
A relaxing time listening to Viennese music
Located halfway between Omuro Ninnaji Station and Myoshinji Station on the Kitano Line, east of the World Heritage site Ninnaji Temple, this teahouse offers an exquisite combination of Viennese sweets and Japanese tea. The owner, fascinated by Viennese culture, opened the shop in an attempt to create a comfortable space away from the hustle and bustle. It was his sense cultivated in a foreign land that led him to discover the excellent compatibility between Viennese sweets and Japanese teas such as Kyobancha, roasted stem tea, kamairicha, and hon-gyokuro. Sencha is carefully brewed in a beautiful tea ceremony.
Enjoy original sweets from Vienna while watching the Sencha tea ceremony
The Western sweets, including Linzertorte, are original creations by a Kobe pastry chef who trained in Paris and Vienna. "Koishi," made of raw chocolate wrapped in gyuhi and sprinkled with cocoa powder, is perfect as a gift. "Mushiyashinai," a miso soup made with white sesame paste and koji miso, is a Kyoto-style meal to fill you up.
A screen made by a Kyoto-based washi artist softens the setting sun, and a one-of-a-kind teapot by a ceramic artist creates a tranquil atmosphere under the indirect lighting on the wall.
- Omuro Sanowa Myoshinji Station
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- Kyoto City, Ukyo Ward, Omurokatamachi 25-2 Delacion Omuro 1st floorMAP
- Approximately 5 minutes walk from Myoshinji Station on the Randen Kitano Line
- 10:00～18:00
- Monday
075-461-9077- 無料（1台）
3Yamanekoken Ryoanji Station
A relaxing cafe for adults located on Kinukake-no-michi
If you go to the right along Kinukake-no-michi in front of Ryoanji Temple from Ryoanji Station, you will come across a staircase leading from the entrance to the basement just before the Ritsumeikan University Gymnasium. As the name of the restaurant suggests, you enter the restaurant from an approach reminiscent of Miyazawa Kenji's fairy tale "The Restaurant of Many Orders." The restaurant offers a wide variety of items, including freshly baked butter waffles, seasonal waffles, pasta lunches, and original bread menus. The owner, who has a keen sense of taste, created the "Kyoto Yuba and Fresh Shichimi Pasta" which uses fresh yuba from a long-established Kyoto store and has a rich, creamy flavor that will become addictive once you try it.
There are children's stories by Kenji Miyazawa on the tables, so you can read them while you wait.
The dessert menu is also eye-catching, with the egg-filled pudding parfait being a particular highlight. The rich caramel is all homemade and has a nostalgic taste. There are two kitchens, separated into a counter for cooking and a counter for brewing coffee so that the flavors do not mix. Although it is located in an area with many World Heritage sites, it is not a shop for tourists, but rather a shop that has been loved by the people of Kyoto for many years. We brew a cup of Yamanekoken Blend Coffee with the hope that you will come again next time.
4Fruit Parlour Cricket Kitanohakubaicho Station
Fruits carefully selected by our vegetable and fruit advisors
If you head north on Nishioji-dori from Kitano-Hakubaicho Station, the starting point of the Randen Kitano Line, you will come across the fruit parlor "Cricket" in front of the gates of Hirano Shrine. The owner, who is a certified vegetable and fruit advisor, known as a sommelier for fruit, selects seasonal fruits and uses them in the menu. The fruit sandwich is popular. Apple slices are spread all over the sandwich along with fresh cream so that there is no part of it without fruit, and seven kinds of seasonal fruits are sandwiched inside.
After tasting the sweets, you'll want to eat the fruit itself.
The owner, who used to run a fruit and vegetable store in Kyoto Central Market, opened this shop to let customers enjoy the delicious taste of fruits from around the world. Cricket's signature product is fruit jelly. It is made by hollowing out a whole orange or grapefruit into a container and pouring all the fruit juice into a jelly, and is often used as a gift in Kyoto. In addition to seasonal fruits, the store also sells fruit cakes, jams made using original methods, and additive-free dried fruits that are sweeter than fresh, as well as fruit that can be used as gifts.
- Fruit Parlour Cricket Kitanohakubaicho Station
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- Sunnyheim Kinkakuji 1st floor, 68-1 Hirano Hacchoyanagicho, Kita-ku, Kyoto City, Kyoto PrefectureMAP
- Approximately 8 minutes walk from Kitano-Hakubaicho Station on the Randen Kitano Line
- 10:00～18:00
- Closed on irregular Tuesdays and December 31st
- 075-461-3000
- 無料（1台）
5Knot Café Kitanohakubaicho Station
Dashimaki sandwich and Brooklyn coffee, the first of its kind in Japan
With the Kitano-Hakubaicho Station on the Kitano Line at your back, walk straight east along Imadegawa-dori street, and shortly after passing Kitano Tenmangu Shrine, you will find a cafe renovated from a former Nishijin weaving townhouse. Based on the concept of the store linking New York and Kyoto, they have selected coffee beans from Cafe Grumpy in Brooklyn and are serving them for the first time in Japan. The rolled omelet sandwich, made on a small bun, comes with a choice of two sauces: special cream or grated daikon radish soy sauce. It is a popular menu item along with the red bean paste butter sandwich, and can be ordered as takeout.
Connecting a long-established confectionery shop with ties to Kitano, Kyoto, with carefully selected products from New York
Since opening in July 2015, the cafe has been located right next to Kitano Tenmangu Shrine, and offers a variety of original sweets, including chocolate daifuku, which combines local Nishijin long-established confectioners Senbon Tamajuken and Chogoro Mochi Honpo with New York chocolate shop Nunu Chocolates. The cafe is built in a single-story building with pillars still intact, has high ceilings, and has an open space with no partitions, making it popular with adult women who drop in alone. The owner's desire to be a place that connects New York and Kyoto, and people with each other, is alive and well.
- Knot Café Kitanohakubaicho Station
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- 758-1 Higashiimakojicho, Shichihonmatsu Nishiiru, Ima-koji-dori, Kamigyo-ku, Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture MAP
- Approximately 10 minutes walk from Kitano-Hakubaicho Station on the Randen Kitano Line
- 10:00～18:00
- Tuesdays (open if Tuesday is the 25th)
- 075-496-5123
- None
6Enttsu Coffee House Kitanohakubaicho Station
If you visit "Phantom Alley", you will arrive at a mysterious space
From Kitano-Hakubaicho Station on the Kitano Line, take a short walk to the area known as Nishijin. Entotsu Coffee House is tucked away in a residential area. From the entrance, which is just wide enough for one adult to pass through, you can finally reach the store by going through a narrow alleyway. The in-house roasted Entotsu Blend has a fragrant sweetness from the deep roasted beans, and when paired with the limited edition gateau au chocolat, you will feel a warm and cozy mood.
It's filled with the excitement of being lost in the pages of a picture book.
The shop opened in May 2016 in an old townhouse that the owner has been slowly renovating for a year and a half. A vertical ladder hangs from the wall, leading to a loft-like cavern, which is a roasting room billed as the owner's prototype room. As the entrance is only just over 50cm wide, bringing in large travel bags or suitcases is prohibited. There is no place to park bicycles, so the only way to get there is on foot. What is the "Phantom Detective Agency" located right next to the entrance is a mystery that only visitors can understand.
- Enttsu Coffee House Kitanohakubaicho Station
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- 110-2 Satakecho, Kamigyo Ward, Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture MAP
- About 25 minutes walk from Kitano-Hakubaicho Station
- 12:00～18:30
- Wednesday and Thursday
- 075-464-5323
- None
<Private residence by the water in Oku-Ranzan.
After enjoying sightseeing, why not relax at a Japanese inn in Arashiyama, which flourished as a villa for Heian aristocrats? At HOSHINOYA Kyoto, located along the valley of Arashiyama, you can feel the changing of the seasons and the traditions that live on in Kyoto.
7HOSHINOYA Kyoto
A quiet Japanese inn located in Rankyo
Arashiyama, where Heian aristocrats had their villas, is about 15 minutes away by boat from Togetsukyo Bridge going upstream along the Oi River, where an inn built along the gorge appears. An elegant space created with innovative ideas using traditional Japanese techniques alive in Kyoto. A private residence where you can immerse yourself in the refined culture nurtured by the capital for a thousand years. Guest room offers a quiet and extraordinary experience through all the rooms with river views, Japanese cuisine that freely expresses the five flavors, Kyoto cultural Experience, and the beautiful scenery of the four seasons.
▼ Declaration of highest level of coronavirus prevention measures
At HOSHINOYA Kyoto, we have implemented two key measures, "hygiene management" and "avoiding the 3 Cs," to ensure that our guests can feel safe and secure, and have improved our existing services at all PropertyCOVID-19 CountermeasuresWe are implementing the following.
- HOSHINOYA Kyoto
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- 11-2 Arashiyama Genrokuyamacho, Nishikyo Ward, Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture MAP
- Approximately 30 minutes by car from JR Kyoto Station
- 0570-073-066 (Accommodation Reservations)
- None *Please use Parking in the Arashiyama area or within the city.
Make a reservation here
HOSHINOYA Kyoto reservation site
