French • Yugawara hillside
About this place
Herlequin Bis (Herlequin Bis) sits not in Yugawara's onsen district but on a hillside about 10-12 minutes' taxi ride inland from the station. The approach is genuinely demanding: reviewers who drive consistently describe the access road as the kind of 'narrow, steep, winding hill' they would not take again voluntarily (a narrow, steep road I would never want to drive myself). Once you're past the climb, a short staircase drops down into the restaurant's site - a standalone glass-walled dining room ringed by a private bamboo grove, with sunroom-style terrace seats looking straight out into the bamboo. Cats and a senior shiba-ken make appearances. The feeling is less 'restaurant in a town' and more 'someone built a country house around a grove and opens it for lunch and dinner.'
Chef Itō ran a French restaurant in Ebisu (Ebisu) before relocating to Yugawara. His training bridges both French and Japanese high-end kitchens, and that shows up in the food: sauces get de-emphasized in favor of ingredient quality, vegetables come from the restaurant's own farm in Hiratsuka (its own Hiratsuka farm), and the cooking rotates strongly by season. Reviewers who visit in different months describe markedly different menus - winter leans on game (wild boar, venison, duck, foie gras) and stews; spring centers on kelp, scallops, and spring cabbage; summer pushes into spice-forward builds (cumin, turmeric, coriander). A Tabelog regular who has eaten here for a decade describes the chef's approach as seasonal-experimental, which is a feature for many visitors and occasionally a shock for regulars expecting the classic menu.
The course structure is consistent across the year. Lunch offers two tiers: the lighter **Rayons sunlight through leaves** (around ¥4,950, tax included) with a main you pick between fish and meat, and the fuller **Saveur in the sunlight** (around ¥6,600, tax included) that adds course weight and sometimes an extra amuse. Dinner runs **Harmonies** (a half-course) and the full **seasonal transition (Utsuroi)** at ¥12,000 tax-in. All courses then add a 10% service charge. Standing fixtures regardless of menu: a set of homemade pickles in the amuse, a self-farm vegetable soup, a cheese or pâté moment, and - always - the signature Brazil pudding (Brazil pudding) at the end, which reviewers repeatedly call the best custard pudding they've eaten. Wine list is moderate and the sommelier recommendations are well-reviewed. Bring-a-car parties routinely order a bottle while one designated driver sticks to Perrier or a non-alcoholic sparkling 'Celebré.'
Three practical things. **Reservations are required and phone is the safest channel**; Table Check supports one-person lunch reservations online. **Closing day is Wednesday** (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday operating; Wednesday closed), and service runs 11:30-13:30 lunch, 18:00-20:30 dinner. **Getting there**: treat this as a taxi trip (¥1,770-2,200 from Yugawara Station, staff will call the return) unless you're already comfortable with steep mountain roads. Lunch shows the bamboo under daylight (sunlight through leaves - 'sunlight through the leaves'), dinner offers the bamboo lit up under lanterns - two different visits, two different meals. Plan this restaurant as the day's centerpiece, not a side stop.
Evidence
Why we say this
Budget, booking, payment, trust labels, quotes, and score notes come from detail-page fields, public listings, guide pages, and review excerpts. Scores are editorial confidence summaries, not live ratings.
- Sources checked
- 5 public sources
- Data notes
- 7 conflict notes
- Currentness
- Static guide record, not a live inventory feed. Confirm hours, prices, closures, and booking availability before travel.
What we know
Quick facts
Address: Miyakami, Yugawara, Ashigarashimo District, Kanagawa 744-49
Phone: 0465-62-3633
Hours: Lunch 11:30-13:30 · Dinner 18:00-20:30
Signal across sources
Scores
| Food quality | 4.4/5 | highTabelog 3.65 across 316 reviews, Tabelog Hyakumeiten French EAST 2025. Chef trained at high-level French and Japanese kitchens; prior Ebisu restaurant. Consistent praise for the technique, seasonal focus, self-farm vegetables, and signature Brazil pudding. Minor but recurring complaints about game-meat toughness (supply-driven) and occasional inconsistency in the spice-heavy summer direction. |
| Value | 4.0/5 | highLunch courses ¥4,950-6,600 for Hyakumeiten-grade French with a bamboo-grove view are widely described as strong value. Dinner at ¥12,000+ is fair for the tier. Note that all prices add a 10% service charge, which some reviewers flag as easy to miss when budgeting. |
| Spaciousness | 3.5/5 | mediumSingle-room dining with terrace/sunroom section. Approximately 5-6 tables on a full service based on review counts of concurrent parties. Recently expanded into former foot-bath terrace space. Groups of 6+ have been accommodated but should reserve well ahead. |
| Seating comfort | 4.0/5 | highGlass-walled sunroom facing the bamboo is consistently named as the reason to come. Most reviewers specifically request or get the terrace-facing table; interior seats are described as 'the miss' by regulars. |
| Health friendly | 4.0/5 | highSelf-farmed (Hiratsuka) vegetables feature heavily; multiple reviewers specifically note that courses are light enough to not weigh you down after dinner. Vegetable soup is a standing course item. Not positioned as health food, but structurally lighter than a classical French program. |
| English ability | 1.5/5 | lowAll reviews in Japanese; no English signage evidence. Service is conducted in Japanese by the chef and one or two floor staff. Possible but not documented. |
| Kid friendly | 1.5/5 | mediumDescribed as 'adult time' (adult time) in a calm, older-skewing crowd. No explicit kid-hostile policy, but the reservation-only, course-only, bamboo-grove destination format is not built around families with young children. |
From the reviews
What people say
A single-house restaurant ringed by a bamboo grove. The kind of place you think, 'how does a restaurant like this even exist here?'
It sits at the end of a narrow, steep hill you absolutely do not want to drive yourself.
The chef used to have a restaurant in Ebisu; a connection brought him to this land.
A light French with Japanese-tinted taste sensibility.
The dessert pudding was so rich and smooth I thought it was the best I'd ever eaten - emotionally-moving good.
Where our sources disagree
Data notes
These are points where the platforms we scraped (Tabelog, Google, Hot Pepper) gave us conflicting information. Where a visitor could waste a trip on a wrong assumption, we have defaulted to the most conservative interpretation rather than picking a winner. Each note explains the contradiction and the choice we made.
- Name spelling: Our guide entry originally carried 'Herlequin Biz' (z); the canonical spelling on Tabelog, Hot Pepper, the town's tourism site, and the official domain is 'Herlequin Bis' (s) / Herlequin Bis. We've corrected the display name while keeping the slug 'herlequin-biz' for URL stability.
- Access: Multiple long-time reviewers warn explicitly against self-driving the approach road - 'narrow, steep, winding, mountain-road' is consistent language. Taxi from Yugawara Station runs ¥1,770-2,200 and staff will call a return. We have defaulted the guidance to 'taxi unless you're comfortable' rather than 'accessible by car' - the latter is true but misleadingly optimistic.
- Service charge: All course prices on the menu list tax but NOT the 10% service charge, which is added at the bill. Reviewers who quote ¥12,000 and ¥6,600 are reporting the menu line; actual pay is ~10% higher. We've flagged this in both the averagePrice line and here.
- Pricing drift: Lunch course 'Saveur in the sunlight' appears as ¥6,050 in 2023 reviews, ¥6,600 in 2024, ¥7,150 in late 2025/early 2026. The lighter Rayons course drifted ¥4,400 → ¥4,950. We quote the most recent figures; expect further adjustment rather than stability.
- Cuisine direction: Menu rotates strongly by season; summer has leaned spice-forward (cumin, turmeric) in recent years, winter leans classical with game. Regulars note this as a feature, but visitors expecting 'classic French' at all times may be surprised. We have written the guide page to describe the rotation rather than pick a single genre.
- Tabelog score drift: Tabelog score during research went 3.64 (web-search snapshot) → 3.65 (live scrape, 316 reviews). Active reviewing; refresh cadence flagged per rubric §1.3.
- First-party website: herlequin.com returned a connection-refused error during our research pass. The official site may be intermittently available or down. The town tourism page (yugawara.or.jp/gourmet/1310) and Tabelog are currently the most reliable authoritative sources.
Where this came from