Such a lovely book of grief and healing at the Chibineko Kitchen, where they serve exactly what will bring your loved one back to with one meal. Highly recommended!

My Rating : 5/5⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Chibineko Kitchen by Yuga Takahashi is a real treasure. If you enjoyed Before the Coffee Gets Cold and The Kamogawa Food Detectives, you'll love this heartwarming Japanese book. It’s about a cozy café that serves "remembrance meals," where the taste of the food allows patrons to see or speak with their loved ones again.t's a beautifully moving tale that I knew would be an emotional rollercoaster after just a few pages.
It’s a touching story about second chances and magic, with a cute kitten adding to its charm.I loved it so much that it made me cry, and I’d give it 5 stars.

I don't wanna be dramatic, but this book was effing brilliant. Could not recommend it more! Have never read a book so fast! I’ll be buying copies for friends and family!

The Chibineko Kitchen is a heartwarming book that appealed to me, because of its similarities to the Before the Coffee Gets Cold and The Kamogawa Food Detectives series. Set in a cosy seaside café, the story revolves around remembrance meals that let patrons reconnect with lost loved ones.

The characters are well-developed, and Chibi the cat adds the purrfect touch 🐈. Each chapter starts with a recipe and ingredient history - it’s truly a magical read….simple yet powerful, touching yet comforting.

I believe there are eight-books in the Chibineko Kitchen series and I can’t wait to read the rest!!!!!

A little word of advice: do not read this when hungry. Do not read this when you are bored or otherwise in a bad mood. This will make you starved, obsessed and full of joy - so much so that you find yourself re-reading pages and paragraphs again because they wordmagic that is going on on the page is out of this world. I fell in love with this story, and I had to read it slowly just so it would last longer. Yuta is a writer to pay attention to.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC copy.

If you've enjoyed other Japanese novels of a similar vein like Before the Coffee Gets Cold, the Kamogawa Detectives or the Restaurant of Love Regained you'll enjoy The Chibineko Kitchen.

The book is ultimately a series of short-interconnected stories which are ideal for those of us who may not be able to sit and read the book in one sitting, with the main plot following the owners of a cosy seaside café who serve the customers a remembrance meal set which allows the customer to speak to their departed loved ones as they eat the meal.