Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group for the e-book copy!

The Kamogawa Food Detectives follows a restaurant with a unique model as they cook food for their clients based solely on their memories. Each client has their own story and the owner and his daughter have to decipher them to recreate an accurate dish. This story worked for me because it felt like it could be a TV show. The stories are episodic in nature and provide the reader with enough to be entertained. I can see this not being for everyone as it is monotonous but I think if you go in expecting low stakes, it will work for you. I recommend this and will be reading book two when it gets released.

This was a great book! I very much enjoyed it and I look forward to reading the author’s next work! Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy.

A nice cozy book! The Kamogawa Food Detectives are a father-daughter team who help people recreate food from their past. Loved the focus on nostalgia and how important our senses and food can be to memory and relationships. This was just so similar to Before the Coffee Gets cold, the structure of strangers finding their way into a Japanese cafe for the owners help over and over, and it felt too repetitive to me in this book. Still enjoyed and would recommend if you need a nice palate cleanser/something easy! Thanks to NetGalley for the arc!

In "The Kamogawa Food Detectives," Hisashi Kashiwai serves up a truly mouthwatering and poignant blend of culinary delight and human drama. This charming novel centers around Koishi Kamogawa and her father Nagare, whose unassuming Kyoto diner offers far more than just delicious meals - they meticulously recreate dishes from customers' treasured memories, unlocking the potential for healing and self-discovery.
Kashiwai's sensuous descriptions of the Kamogawas' gastronomic sleuthing make this book an absolute feast for the senses. From parsing the subtlest flavors to unraveling the histories and emotions baked into each long-forgotten recipe, the novel pays loving homage to the profound connections between food, memory, and identity.

Full review below!

I want to begin this review by stating that this book was simply not for me, and that is the sole reason for this rating. There was no problem with the writing style, and I only had one or two small complaints with the actual content of the book. Simply put, I am not a short story girlie and had no idea what I was going into would feel more like a series of short stories than one cohesive plot. That doesn't mean that this book is bad - it just means that I am not the audience for it.

The Kamogawa Food Detectives follows a father-daughter cooking pair who are able to bring people's most cherished culinary memories to life. This book showcases five unique cases that the pair must solve. Each chapter has extremely detailed descriptions of the methods and ingredients that were used for each dish. I think that those more familiar with Japan will enjoy hearing about the regional differences in ingredients and probably be able to relate more to the important differences between water from one area vs. another.

The main issue for me was that there was no plot. It was just a series of entertaining stories about a father and daughter that cook together and the people they help along the way. The descriptions of food were neat, but the formula for each chapter felt repetitive after the first two, and the third continued the trend. I am told that this plot is almost identical to Before the Coffee Gets Cold, and I am sure that people who liked that story will like this one, too. It simply wasn't a story written for me.

This was a cute and cozy read. At times it was a little slow for me, and unfortunately had to force myself to finish this one. Started out strong but felt weak towards the end. Loved the world and prose, so will be looking for more from this author, but this just wasn't the right book for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

This book is essentially a series of 6 vignettes. Six different people find the Kamogawa Food Detectives, a father and daughter who own a small obscure restaurant. If you go in, they'll serve you a set meal of the chef's choice, an amazing assortment of comforting dishes. Then each of the books six seekers go into a back room where the daughter interviews them about the real reason that they've come: they are seeking to have a certain remembered dish replicated. The daughter gathers what information she can and then the father (a former detective) goes and researches ingredients to figure out how to accomplish their task, usually completed in two weeks.

The first person who asks for a recipe is also a former detective, a former colleague of the father's. He wants an udon dish just the way his wife (who has passed on) used to make it before he decides whether to get more serious about the relationship he's currently in. Then there's a beef stew that an older lady would like as she finds herself nostalgic about a past relationship of her own. Other requests include a Napolitan spaghetti like the one a father made for his young daughter and a hearty fried tonkatsu from a refined lady who rarely eats meat but who has been thinking about this dish from her past. In each case, the detective finds ingredients sourced from exactly where they were from before and finds an emotional connection from each person to the dish.

That's the book! Stakes are low, it's very cozy. I had to look up some Japanese foods and ingredients because I wasn't familiar with them and it was worth it every time. The author seems to have enough regional food knowledge that I was interested in learning from him. If you need a book where nothing bad happens, this is a great way to spend a couple of hours.

I have mixed feelings about this one. I absolutely LOVED the nostalgia, the food descriptions and the overall happy feelings I got from these stories.

On the other hand, they all followed a formula that made the book boring.... but not. That's what I'm saying. The overall feeling was so nice, but I think I was left wanting something more or maybe for all the stories to tie together at the end??

Don't read this book on an empty stomach. Even if you don't like food other than American, these food descriptions will, at a minimum, send you out in bad weather for a hot bowl of Ramen.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for an e-copy of THE KAMOGAWA FOOD DETECTIVES to review.

I rate THE KAMOGAWA FOOD DETECTIVES three out of five stars.

Adored this book! Loved the unique take on the cozy mystery genre by focusing on culinary mysteries rather than a murder to solve. Also had thoughtful things to say about grief.

This was such a cute cozy read but it made me so hungry! This book follows a father daughter team who recreate missing or forgotten recipes for people . This was a cute easy comfort read that is all about food helping multiple people recreate their favorite recipe’s. This book was different from other cozy mysteries no murders no crimes just good people and good food. This is my first book from this author and really enjoyed it made me want to take a food vacation. I would like to thank net galley and the publishers for a chance to read this book for an honest review.

A cozy detective book centered on people's desires to find a dish from their past. Koishi takes notes on each case and tries to find out what she can about the person's request and then her father Nagare investigates and finds the dish, then recreates it for the person. Each person has a different reason for their search but all revolve around some current issue in their life that the dish reminds them of. Overall, low stakes mysteries that give off a very cozy vibe and feature delicious food descriptions.

An extremely cozy and delicious treat! A father-daughter duo in Kyoto own a restaurant where they try to recreate dishes from their clients' memories, which help them find unexpected answers to big life questions. It takes the form of six short stories from the perspectives of different clients. I'm obviously down for any food-centric fiction, and this one has such a unique and engaging premise that I fell in love from the start.

A hidden little gem of a restaurant acts as a detective agency that investigates how to recreate favorite dishes from client's past. This book is so charming, soothing, and cozy. I love the descriptions of Japanese food. Reading this book is like a warm hug.

This was a fascinating book. I was expecting a cozy mystery but this was so much better. Cozy vibe, lots of food and helping customer rediscover that lost recipe that holds special memories. I would love to go on these adventures and hear the stories of taste and how he found things out.

This book was absolutely delightful. I wish there was more of it! The premise was interesting, but it was written in such and gentle, comforting way. I read a chapter each night and it was like a bedtime story!

I adored this book. It was so heartwarming and exactly what I needed. Koishi Kamogawa runs a little diner with her father Nagare in a alley in Kyoto. Instead of a set menu the duo works hard to help their customers discover long forgotten recipes that are important to them. The format is similar to many of the latest Japanese novels to be translated into English, basically it is like a serialized story bound together in one book. If I has one complaint it was that I was starving after I finished reading about all the yummy food memories.

This is not your traditional detective story featuring a crime but rather a father-daughter duo in Kyoto who seek to rediscover and recreate a dish for their client which is tied to some fond memory or loss. As such the book is arranged into a couple of chapters dedicated to each client in which the description of the dish and the details of the location and association are related. There are plenty of vibrant descriptions of texture, aroma, and taste that bring the food alive. I hope you have something to satisfy cravings that are bound to come up while reading this delightful and charming story.

The most important part, though, is the connection between food, memories, atmosphere and emotions. The reliving of these recipes allows the client to rediscover important events and feelings and resolve things in their present lives. That is where this story transcends just a culinary delight. The stories go into some detail about the investigation about how they found the particular combinations that make this recipe just right and different than any other attempts to recreate the food. Sometimes it is a particular combination of spices that are specific to an area or even to one store, or locally sourced ingredients that might be influenced by the taste of the water. That is what is both very interesting about the book and also my one gripe comes from. I just don't believe that they would be able to recreate some of these recipes from 20+ years before in some cases. If a store is defunct how can they recreate the specific ratios of certain herbs to get just the right taste without having the client there to do multiple taste tests? Or if it is a secret recipe of a grandmother can they figure out what it could be. But that is a small complaint.

Enjoy this delicious and heart-warming story. Thanks to Negalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

3.5/5

“’Oh, there’s no such thing as rude or polite when it comes to food,’ said Nagare, clearing away the rest of her dishes and wiping the tables. ‘What matters is that you eat it the way you like it.’”

If there was a restaurant that could recreate a nostalgic recipe only based on your feelings and memories, would you go? It's the one dish you'd do anything to taste one more time - so you have to. In a quiet neighborhood in Kyoto called the Kamogawa Diner, the father-daughter duo that runs the place are ‘food detectives’ on the side, cooking up dishes for people who come hoping for a chance to eat their favorite memory again. Kamogawa Food Detectives is a mouth-watering book showing the power of a delicious meal - how lost recipes may provide a way to seemingly vanished moments, and lead someone into a present full of possibility.

This book reminded me so much of Before the Coffee Gets Cold - but for the foodies. The descriptions of the food shown throughout sound so delicious and make me want to book a flight ticket back to Japan just to have some of that food. I always had Google open just to understand exactly what foods everyone was eating in the bed, and it looked heavenly. Definitely not the best book if you’re hungry! In terms of the style of writing, was a bit simplistic and repetitive. Since the format is the same for every mystery that happens per chapter, towards the end it got very repetitive where I was waiting for something else to happen, and it never did. While I loved the characters that came in every chapter and their stories, I feel like the main characters weren’t doing much for me. I wish there was a bit more effort put into making the chapters seem like their own. But if you liked Before the Coffee Gets Cold, then it’s a similar structure and you’ll like this!

I must be missing something, because this book is getting all sorts of rave reviews from around the world. For me, though, it was a total bore. Endless descriptions of foods, many of which I have no idea what they are (presumably Japanese specialties/ingredients). And random people showing up at this little restaurant to ask the owners to recreate a dish they remember from their childhoods. There really was no overall plot, just a series of people coming in with their requests. It was, as I’ve said, rather boring and it was also very repetitive, with the father-daughter restaurant owners explaining things to each customer, including the photos on the wall and the form each had to fill out. This made it seem like several independent stories, rather than one narrative. I stuck with it to the end in the hope that something interesting might actually happen. Nope!

Two stars simply for the lovely and loving descriptions of foods.

Thank you to NetGalley and G.P. Putnam’s Sons for the opportunity to read an advance readers copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

This book is like a comforting, warm hug. The novel consists of a series of vignettes about various clients of the Kamogawa Diner and Detective Agency. Each person comes to the diner searching to recreate an important meal from their past. The owners of the diner, Nagare and his daughter Koishi, interview each customer to learn the story behind their mystery meal and then work to recreate it, The stories behind each client’s meal are heartwarming illustrations of the power of food, memory and nostalgia. Although I don’t know much about Japanese cuisine, the food descriptions were intriguing and mouth-watering, making me wish I could try the dishes. I also loved the relationship between Nagare and Koishi. I can’t wait to read future installments of this series. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.