A Kamogawa Food Detectives Novel Series

A beloved Japanese bestseller, Menu of Happiness is for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold and asks the question: What’s the one dish you’d do anything to taste just one more time?

“As warm and nourishing as a good cup of tea…a series I can see myself returning to again and again.”—Mia P. Manansala, award-winning author of Arsenic and Adobo

Every memory has a flavor. A very special restaurant in Kyoto helps find them . . .

Welcome to the Kamogawa Diner, where every meal is a mystery ready to be solved. This unique establishment is run by a father-daughter duo who offer more than just mouth-watering meals. They act as “food detectives,” delving into the past to produce nostalgia-infused dishes for their hungry clientele.

Among the patrons is a once-renowned pianist whose promising career was marred by a self-inflicted injury. She longs to taste the yakisoba shared with the only man she ever truly loved. The diner also welcomes a man haunted by shadows of regret. His mind is haunted by the memory of gyoza served by the parents of a lover he once jilted, as he seeks understanding and, perhaps, forgiveness.

The Kamogawa Diner doesn’t just serve food – it recreates forgotten recipes, helping its patrons to revisit memories lost to time. Each dish is a portal to the past, serving not just sustenance but solace and reconnection through the miracle of delicious food.

We all hold lost recipes in our hearts. A very special restaurant in Kyoto helps find them . . .

Tucked away down a Kyoto backstreet lies the extraordinary Kamogawa Diner, run by Chef Nagare and his daughter, Koishi. The father-daughter duo have reinvented themselves as “food detectives,” offering a service that goes beyond cooking mouth-watering meals. Through their culinary sleuthing, they revive lost recipes and rekindle forgotten memories.

From the Olympic swimmer who misses his estranged father’s bento lunchbox to the one-hit-wonder pop star who remembers the tempura she ate to celebrate her only successful record, each customer leaves the diner forever changed—though not always in the ways they expect . . .

The Kamogawa Diner doesn’t just serve meals—it’s a door to the past through the miracle of delicious food. A beloved bestseller in Japan, The Restaurant of Lost Recipes is a tender and healing novel for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold.

The Kamogawa Food Detectives is the first book in the bestselling, mouth-watering Japanese series, for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold.

What’s the one dish you’d do anything to taste just one more time?


Down a quiet backstreet in Kyoto exists a very special restaurant. Run by Koishi Kamogawa and her father Nagare, the Kamogawa Diner serves up deliciously extravagant meals. But that’s not the main reason customers stop by . . .


The father-daughter duo are ‘food detectives’. Through ingenious investigations, they are able to recreate dishes from a person’s treasured memories – dishes that may well hold the keys to their forgotten past and future happiness. The restaurant of lost recipes provides a link to vanished moments, creating a present full of possibility.


A bestseller in Japan, The Kamogawa Food Detectives is a celebration of good company and the power of a delicious meal.