Heian Jingu Kaikan stands inside the grounds of Heian Jingu in Kyoto, next to the Shin'en garden, and that garden is the reason the building is where it is. The Shin'en is a nationally designated Place of Scenic Beauty. It is a pond-strolling garden that borrows the Higashiyama hills as its backdrop and is fed by the Lake Biwa Canal, laid out by a group of gardeners working with techniques Kyoto had spent a thousand years refining. The Kaikan went up in 1969 for the shrine's 70th anniversary, with a copper irimoya roof that has weathered to green, and was refurbished in 2018. There are two halls. The Seihoden has about thirty metres of window facing the garden and seats 180. The Geihinden is smaller at 96, and looks out at the Taiheikaku bridge and the Shobikan pavilion. Take one hall for a small dinner, or the whole venue, which handles three hundred or more. That scale is rare in Kyoto, where most heritage sites cap out well below it. Food is Kyo-kaiseki, or a Japanese-French course if you prefer. Early April for the weeping cherry and late November for the maples are the obvious months, but the garden was designed to hold up in all four seasons, and the window-walls mean weather is never a problem.