Kyoto for The Food Pilgrims: a Friday-to-Monday weekend

Come for the closing hour when the pickle sellers hand out the last tastes and the tako-tamago skewers are discounted; five blocks, four centuries, one narrow roof.

A confectioner since the 1700s; order kuzukiri, arrowroot noodles in ice water with black sugar syrup, in the back room and watch the sweets being shaped at the counter.

A loud, cheap kaiseki at a counter over the Takase canal, eight courses from cooks in bandanas who plate with tweezers and laugh; book the counter seats.

A covered market street of fishmongers and tofu makers; the queue outside Demachi Futaba is for mame-mochi, red beans in salt-dusted rice cake, worth twenty minutes.

Shape three seasonal sweets from bean paste under a confectioner who has done it since 1865, then eat one with matcha and carry the rest home in a box.

Yoshihiro Murata's Michelin-starred kaiseki in a villa below Kōdai-ji, a dozen courses that follow the month; the serious dinner, booked the day reservations open.

The 1909 brewery kept as it was, with the wooden tubs and the brewers' work songs on tape; the ticket includes a tasting and a small bottle to take away.

The Yamamoto Honke brewery's own restaurant in a converted storehouse: chicken grilled over charcoal, oyakodon and sake straight from the tank at the price of a soft drink.

The basement of the station department store: Kyoto pickle makers, Murakami Kaishindo biscuits, bento for the train and the whole city's sweet shops on one floor.

The 1930 bakery café by Kyoto University, long oak tables that students are not supposed to study at, and a curry-bread that has outlived several faculties.

The Uji tea grower's own tea room: a bowl of their competition-grade matcha whisked in front of you, and the lesson in why the cheaper tin tastes of nothing.

Nishin soba, invented here in 1882: a whole sweet-simmered herring over buckwheat noodles in a clear broth, eaten by the bridge before the airport train.