Breakfast at Lorimer is the best Japanese-style breakfast in Kyoto. In fact, it's the best breakfast I've had in Kyoto.
But here's the thing — this classic Japanese breakfast, premised on the elemental and long-standing formula of one soup and three side dishes (ichijū sansai), is prepared by two New Yorkers, Paul Kim and Jeremy Velardi, and Kyotoite Tomomi Horii, who trained in New York.
The New York connection comes via the owner of Lorimer, Yuji Haraguchi — originally from Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture — who has been a transplant to the U.S. for the past 10 years.