On a narrow street just north of Higashi Honganji temple, a massive Shin Buddhist complex near Kyoto Station, lies A Peu Pres.
Since 2007, this former ink factory, the building shrouded in a conspicuous web of climbing ivy, has been home to chef Mizuho Takemura, 38, who makes unfussy casual French fare, the type of food that first attracted her to French cuisine, and ultimately to Burgundy where she trained for five years in her early 20s.
A Peu Pres is decidedly not the kind of French restaurant with starched white linens and an omnipresent maitre d'. Rather, it has a whimsical easygoing charm. And Takemura's take on French food is wholesome, without fanfare or drama.