Kaiamo

Kaiamo (ΚΛΙΛΜO̲ in its stylised wordmark) is the defining room of Bucharest's contemporary fine-dining scene. Chef Radu C. M. Ionescu-Feher was born in Bucharest in 1991, trained in London under Ollie Dabbous at the Michelin-starred Dabbous in Fitzrovia, and returned to open Kaiamo in 2019. The 50 Best Discovery listing followed in 2022; Gault&Millau, La Liste, and JRE-Jeunes Restaurateurs acknowledgements arrived in quick succession.

The format is exclusively tasting menus: nine or eleven courses for the Classic progression, fifteen or twenty courses for the Author menu. Radu builds each sitting as a narrative — courses grouped into thematic chapters, each chapter anchored to a Romanian ingredient or tradition. A recent Author menu included a chapter on the Danube Delta (Black Sea prawn, carp caviar, reed-smoked carp), a chapter on the Carpathian highlands (wild mushrooms, slow-cooked lamb, alpine cheeses), and a chapter on Transylvanian grandmother-cooking updated through contemporary technique.

The wine list is Romanian-forward with careful international coverage. The country's serious producers — Avincis, Crama Oprișor, Cotnari, Liliac, Domeniul Coroanei Segarcea — are represented in depth, and the pairing programme (available with every menu length) is the intended way through the kitchen. Non-alcoholic pairings are equally considered, built around fermented juices, shrubs, and Romanian herbal infusions.

The dining room seats forty across the ground floor of a villa in the Aviatorilor district, with a chef's counter facing the open kitchen for eight diners. The counter is the best experience in the room — Radu is on the pass every service, conversation happens naturally, and the pacing across fifteen or twenty courses is more intimate than the main dining hall. Reservations for weekend dinner run two to three weeks ahead; Wednesday and Thursday are the easier nights.

The most acclaimed kitchen in Romania, a tasting menu at a price point that makes twelve courses a reasonable evening, and an Ollie Dabbous pedigree that does the formal signalling — Kaiamo is how you impress a client in Bucharest. Book the chef's counter for parties of two; the main dining room for three or more. The fifteen-course Author menu is the intended sitting.