This was a super cosy listen and I really enjoyed it, nearly as much as the first book. You get to know the characters more in this book though, which is always a plus for me. I’m definitely a fan of this author!! Thanks to NetGalley and publishers for the audio arc.

Rounding up to 3 stars.


Unfortunately this audio didn't live up to my expectations
It's a lovely idea, but for me I found non of the customers stood out from one another.
There were some sweet moments in there, but not enough for me to enjoy the book fully.

I cannot express how much I adored this. I was a little worried that it wouldn’t live up to the first book but the second was filled to the brim with just as much cosyness. I loved each and every little story and character, I especially loved the Christmas cake chapter. Some of the best translated fiction I’ve ever read.

I was so excited to read this but found myself so disappointed with it.



Full disclosure: the audiobook format negatively impacted my experience with this one and I found it difficult to experience the story behind its delivery. Even accounting for this, I found this lacked the charm, emotion, and depth that makes food writing and healing fiction work. The repetition across the book (and series!) is really pronounced, like a plug-and-play template format across sections and books!

Format Review 🎧
I didn’t enjoy this narrator. The delivery was dry: robotic enunciation, slooooow monotone reading, and emotionally flat. The narrator had a breathy delivery that really didn’t work for the story and they didn’t do much to differentiate the characters which didn’t help the monotony. Listening to it on 1.25-1.50x improved the monotony a bit but I found myself zoning out and bored while listening which hasn’t happened to me with an audiobook before. 😕 Audio: 1.5/5

Story Review 📖
The food writing in this was pretty solid but it’s buried in excessive repetition, stilted dialogue, and boring storytelling.
The clients in this were dull and weren’t well fleshed-out characters. Their problems weren’t interesting (they all felt the same!) and they didn’t have enough characterization to be interesting; most of them were obstinate and ride or meek and whiny. The daughter was just as whiny and rude as in the first book. She reads like a petulant, surly teen but is apparently pushing 40?! The dad was kind of creepy in this one with his comments about the daughter’s friend.
None of the relationships or humans felt authentic to me as a reader: I’m not sure if it was the delivery or the writing but despite some of the sad subject matter, I felt nothing when listening to the problems of the characters. The relationship between the proprietor and his daughter seemed even more awkward in this instalment than the first.

I continue to be disappointed that all the food detecting happens off-stage in this series. We have to sit through the repetitive sections where clients find the restaurant, eat, and outline their request. Then, the same kinda thing when they come to eat the meal. All the detecting is delivered through the dad's narrative, after the fact.

I found the repetition in the first book grating and this was just as bad: it retread a lot of ground that we covered in the first book (how the restaurant works, a lot of the dialogue, the comments directed at the cat) and then across sections in this book too. It made a lot of the text feel like filler to pad out the book. Since I read the first book, I’ve discovered other Japanese serial shorts that have strong character development and arcs that thread through the shorts and having that comparison makes this template style feel so bland.

Similar to the first book, the translation felt... clunky? I noticed a lot of British expressions and language in this book that I can’t imagine is present in the original text: barring proper nouns, it didn’t feel translated as much as made palatable for western audiences, which was disappointing. Through the language, this book felt more British than Japanese - this was compounded by a completely absent sense of place.

I’m so grateful for the opportunity to review this as I was curious to see if there’d be any development since the first book. Unfortunately, it’s showing a lot of the same problems as I found in Before the Coffee Gets Cold. I need more character and story depth/development than this is offering me, so I think I’m going to leave this series behind. Story: 2.5/5

I was privileged to have my request to read this book accepted through NetGalley. Thank you for the opportunity to review this, Macmillan UK Audio.

This series is such a comfort read! So cosy, heartwarming and mouth-watering

The Restaurant of Lost Recipes was such a good follow-up to The Kamogawa Food Detectives! It made me excited to carry on reading this series.

If you're not familiar with the premise of this series, let me explain. These books are set in Kyoto, Japan where Nagare Kamogawa, a former police detective, and his daughter, Koishi, run a restaurant that has a side business: a food detective agency. Nagare is hired to use his detective skills to find dishes that hold special significance in his customers' hearts and then uses his abilities as a chef to recreate them. Each chapter focuses on a different character, and their story with the specific dish they ask him to look for.

Because the premise had already been explained in the first book, The Restaurant of Lost Recipes has a simpler structure of two chapters per character; the first one detailing the first visit to the restaurant and the story of the dish each person is looking for, and the second one focused on the tasting and the story of how Nagare got hold of the exact recipe of the dish in question.

I loved all of the stories in this book! Even though the structure is the same, each story was quite interesting and different amongst themselves; the characters were quite unique as well. Once again, the food descriptions really steal the show in The Restaurant of Lost Recipes. All of the food Nagare cooks sounded so incredibly delicious! It was a mouth-watering read. Reading this book truly felt like a treat to me. I can't wait to keep reading this series!

I had read an e-ARC of this book before listening to the audiobook, and I found listening to it an incredible experience! The narrator did an incredible job of making this book come to life. I also listened to the first book in this series and had a similar experience, so I'd definitely recommend checking out the audiobooks.

I can't wait for Book 3 to come out! I want more

Thank you so much to Macmillan Audio UK / Mantle and NetGalley for this ALC!