The centerpiece of lunch at Grand Kitchen Tada is a blackened hot stone — as black as squid ink — upon which thin slices of wagyu beef fry. The meat is still sizzling as the server places the tray down, with a warning that the stone is hot and inedible. Well, she didn't exactly say the stone was inedible, but may as well have — it's about as obvious as telling me the rock was hot.

It seems that in this day and age, you can't trust the customer. Coffee is hot, almond cookies contain nuts and hot rocks can burn you — these helpful warnings are so embedded in the patronizing language of food health and safety it's hard to see them disappearing anytime soon.

Grand Kitchen Tada is located in a beautifully restored traditional machiya (town house) a stone's throw from Nishiki Market in downtown Kyoto. Sensibly, the interior designers have stuck with the dark palette that resonates with the authentic spirit of a machiya — for me, these town houses convey a sense of foreboding and of proprietary.