Savoring the Flavors of Japan in Salt Lake City
The Utah food scene offers an array of Japanese restaurants across Salt Lake City. These restaurants and food places provide places for more than just meals like Japanese drinks and desserts. Some of these food places hold strong ties to Japan by either exporting theirs from Japan, like Matcha Cafe Kyoto, or having experience owning a similar restaurant in places like Kytoto, like Koyote SLC.
Restaurants
Matcha Cafe Kyoto
This is one of the few Matcha places in Utah that offers Matcha exported from Japan. They offer a variety of foods, such as hot and cold lattes, hard or soft-serve matcha ice cream, and parfaits. These options, along with their cakes and pastries, make this a must-visit spot for anyone looking to enjoy Japanese Matcha here in SLC.
Must Try Items: Lattes (Hot or Cold)
Matcha latte: classic matcha with your choice of almond, oat, or soy milk.
Matcha Strawberry latte: a sweet and refreshing combination of matcha and strawberry
Matcha Float: A creamy matcha drink topped with a scoop of ice cream.
Matcha Parfait: soft serve, matcha jelly, mochi balls, red bean paste, honey cake, or cereal.
Kumo Cafe
This cafe is the only place in Utah where you can indulge in Japanese fluffy pancakes. Almost everything at Kumos Cafe is handcrafted, from the syrups to the fluffy pancakes. They offer a variety of drinks, such as Iced Lattes and Milk-Iced Coffee, and other desserts, such as Crepe Cake Slices and bunnies panna cotta. This place is the perfect spot for anyone with a sweet tooth.
Must Try Items:
Passionfruit slice: 20 layers of golden paper-thin crepes filled with specially imported south east asian passion fruit pulp swirled in cream.
Ichigo latte: Homemade Ichigo (strawberry) sauce w/ whole milk
Passionfruit basque: Rich and creamy special basque (burnt) cheesecake topped with our special Dulce de Leche sauce
Creme Brulee: fluffy pancake with dulce de leche sauce, topped with fresh berries, and a scoop of ice cream.
Koyote SLC
This palace is one of the newest additions to Salt Lake City’s Japanese food scene. Established by two chefs with over 30 years of culinary experience in Kyoto, this restaurant offers many traditional dishes such as ramen, okazu, and washoku. They also cater to dietary preferences with vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free options. Making this place a versatile dining spot for all people wanting to try authentic Japanese.
Must Try Items:
American Shoyu: Tokyo-style broth, with clear chicken and pork broth. Accompanied by medium-thick, wavy noodles, that’s garnished with smoked brisket, a soft-boiled marinated egg, Japanese naga negi (green onions), scallions, and Menma (tender bamboo shoots).
Tantan-men: A vegetarian Chinese-style ramen with a creamy sesame broth and robust medium-thick noodles. Topped with plant-based mapo chili, house-made chili crisps, a soft-boiled egg, Naga Negi (Japanese green onions), scallions, and baby bok choy.
Koyote Original Mazemen: Brothless ramen is great for summer. It comes with Sapporo-style egg noodles and is served with garlic soy sauce, a soft-poached egg, smoked pork belly, pecorino cheese, crispy collards, naga negi, Asian shiso, green onions, garlic chives, menma, and togarashi lime.
Sake-don: Fresh salmon, lightly seared and sliced, served on a bed of premium Japanese rice. Topped with ume (Japanese pickled plum) shiso paste, green onions, tender edible greens, and ikura (salmon eggs), and delicately finished with a house-made ponzu sauce drizzle.
