I took my young kids to an eight-course dinner. What was I thinking?

My partner, Jess, and I look across the table at each other with incredulity. What were we thinking? What possessed us to believe this was a reasonable idea?

We’ve just received the set menu for tonight’s dinner, a list almost literally as long as my arm, printed on beautiful paper. This is a kaiseki meal, though it’s one we will be sharing with our children, aged six and three, first-time diners in the refined surrounds of a Japanese ryokan.

And what are we eating? Soba and foie mousse with koji miso; chestnut dressed with tofu, white sesame and white miso; assorted sashimi; red-wine sukiyaki with raw egg; red miso soup with pickled vegetables.

Credit: Jamie Brown

I don’t see dishes here – I see time. I see 20 minutes for that course, 10 minutes for that course, maybe 15 for that one … It adds up. Quickly.

We’re staring down the barrel of a two-hour dinner here, a meal my children are probably not going to like, in a place where they’re expected to behave themselves and be quiet – and the only time my children are quiet is when they’re asleep (and even then, I’m serious, they talk in their sleep).

The venue is Kai Matsumoto, a sophisticated, cultured hotel in the heart of Japanese high country, in the Nagano prefecture. It’s all tatami-mat floors and sliding paper doors here, yukata gowns and geta sandals, hushed hallways and tinkling water features.

Our children, I have to say, look cute in their little ryokan outfits. And we have a private dining room, with no one else to annoy. These are good things.

Kai Matsumoto’s elegant kaiseki dishes.

But kaiseki. It’s eight courses. It’s two hours. It’s a recipe if not for disaster, then at least for a long evening of frowning and shooshing and bribery to keep our kids on their chairs.

And there is a lot of that. But it’s not all bad because Kai offers a kids’ kaiseki menu to enjoy while we eat ours.

Are my kids going to eat French fries and deep-fried chicken? Absolutely. Are they going to enjoy fish and vegetables in a viscous, umami-rich sauce? Some days, though apparently not today. Will they eat salmon roe, and spinach dressed with sesame? Not a chance.

Still, when the kids do start to get restless, our waiter appears with an origami guide and a thick sheaf of paper, which buys us at least one more course of semi-relaxed kaiseki dining.

Our kids are not angelic, and we do have to physically restrain the three-year-old from sprinting down the hallway and into the other dining rooms.

But still, for the chance to stay in a ryokan, to dress in traditional garb, to sit in one of these beautiful rooms and enjoy high-end seasonal cuisine? We weren’t crazy.