After a career as a police detective, Nagare Kamogawa now spends his time cooking for others at the Kamogawa Diner alongside his daughter Koishi. There is no signage or online presence for the diner, which means that every visitor is there on purpose and with intention. Sometimes, that intention is simply to enjoy the most delicious meal of their lives. More often, though, they're searching for something that only the Kamogawa's secondary business—the Food Detective Agency—can provide. As the city cycles through each season of the year, the Kamogawas team up to track down significant dishes from their clients' pasts—not just the recipe, but the way it made them feel. If closure and context are included with the platefuls of Japanese-style ketchup spaghetti and tonkatsu, all the better.

The Kamogawa Food Detectives is the first installment in the Kamogawa Food Detectives series by Hisashi Kashiwai. Originally published in Japan in 2013, it was translated into English and released in the United States in 2024. This series is set in contemporary Kyoto.

I dove into this book excitedly and with as few expectations as possible. Over the past few years I've found I almost always love books, especially cozy books, that were originally published in Japanese or Korean. I appreciate their perceived deceptive simplicity, and this was no exception. While I haven't had the pleasure of sampling most of the dishes described, the descriptions practically spun them from air and dropped them on my tongue. I, an avid hater of both mushrooms and most shellfish, longed for fried matsukake, miso-simmered osyters, and clam and bamboo shoot broth. I found myself tearing up multiple times as I experienced the diner through the fresh perspective of a new customer, and perhaps most importantly, added several Japanese dishes to my meal plans for the month of January. Kashiwai (along with Jesse Kirkwood's masterful translation) helps us understand how food can heal trauma and hurt memories, making way for a brighter and lighter path forward. I'm looking forward to reading both The Restaurant of Lost Recipes and The Menu of Happiness over this next year.