Back when Niseko was still just “a ski resort,” nobody called it a dining destination. Then one restaurant rewrote the script. Chef Yuichi Kamimura is Hokkaido-born; as a young man he went to Sydney on a working-holiday visa and spent several years under Tetsuya Wakuda at the three-starred Tetsuya’s. In 2008 he brought that training back to the foot of the mountains and opened KAMIMURA — giving Niseko its own origin point for fine dining, and seeding the constellation of stars that later spread across the area.
That restaurant closed its doors in April 2025. The hands did not leave. In 2019 he had already opened kitchen, a sister restaurant on the same floor of the same building, and the official wording of its brief is plain: the cooking stance KAMIMURA holds dear — drawing out what the ingredient itself has to give — stays exactly as it was; only the formality of the room relaxes. So if you want to taste this lineage in Niseko today, this is the door.
What differs most from the old room is the distance. Thirty seats, an open kitchen right in front of you, the chef’s hands working at arm’s length. Beyond the window is the skirt of the Niseko range — snow in winter, green in summer. The menu moves with Hokkaido’s four seasons and is built around courses, with wine, whisky and local beer alongside. The official site is explicit: no children’s menu, no high chairs, and no seat-only visits. This is a room for people who intend to eat the whole meal.
This seat sets the gastronomic key of the itinerary: a small-party evening where the story of the land is actually eaten. It stands not on ceremony but on two layers of résumé no one can copy — origin and apprenticeship — and that résumé now works at the counter of an open kitchen.