Audiobook Review | The Kamogawa Food Detectives

Two audiobooks in a row and a catch up for one of my September challenge prompts.

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The Kamogawa Food Detectives
Hisashi Kashiwai
Translated by Jesse Kirkwood

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 treats its customers to wonderfully extravagant meals. But that’s not the main reason to stop by . . .

The father-daughter duo have started advertising their services as ‘food detectives’. Through ingenious investigations, they are capable of recreating a dish from their customers’ pasts – dishes that may well hold the keys to forgotten memories and future happiness.

From the widower looking for a specific noodle dish that his wife used to cook, to a first love’s beef stew, the restaurant of lost recipes provides a link to the past – and a way to a more contented future.

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

Bookshop.org | Goodreads | The StoryGraph | Amazon

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I love it when I take a chance on a book I might not have read and have such an enjoyable experience, especially because I actually didn’t read the title properly and discovered that this was a very different book from what I had imagined, but in the best way. The Kamogawa Food Detectives is a lovely book it explores the relationship between food, memory, and feelings in a light-hearted and comforting way.

It is a little formulaic, the book is made up of six stories and each story is played out in the same way just with a different customer and dish that they are looking for. With each story as well as exploring the background of the person and their chosen dish, we also get a deeper look into the lives of the food detectives Koishi and her father, Nagare.

Whilst its structure is repetitive there is something that I found calming about it, I liked that after the first customer I knew what they were going to experience. This meant I could be immersed in the story of what food they wanted recreated, why it was important to them, and then what Nagare learned about them when he made the dish.

It was interesting going on a journey into the past of each character but special mention has to go to Drowsy the cat who was a lovely addition to the end of each chapter.

The narration by Hanako Footman is wonderful but I must warn you it is dangerous to listen to this without some good food to hand, all the luscious descriptions of the ingredients had me craving things I wouldn’t normally want to eat. To be honest the descriptions of some of the different places in Japan also had me entranced, for such a succinct story it was utterly charming.

I’m glad I was drawn to this story and that it was such a cosy and joyful experience, if you are looking for something short, sweet and heart-warming then The Kamogawa Food Detectives is for you.

Reviews of other books by Hisashi Kashiwai
The Restaurant of Lost Recipes