There's every chance that while dining at Sakamoto you'll end up in a tourist's photo. It's not because of who you are, but where you are. Diners sit overlooking the shallow Shirakawa River, which is lined with restaurants, bars and cafes on one side, and a cobbled street with cherry trees and willows on the other, the tips of their branches fanning the water as it dances through the Gion district.
It's a location that quietly screams, "This could only be Kyoto" — hence the tourists and their cameras.
Sakamoto is located down a dark, narrow alley on the southern side of the river. Once inside, the natural light pouring in through the trees illuminates this small kappo (counter style) restaurant. It might all be too cliched, if you weren't perched above a canal in old Kyoto.