The Best Places to Drink and Stay in Japan

The bones of this luxury boutique hotel are those of an 1908 tsarist consulate, all red brick and period detail in the Consulate Wing, with a sleek Wellness Wing bolted on alongside. Every suite comes with a private sauna, and a shared wellness space adds a jacuzzi and plunge pool. The kitchen runs from French fine dining to a sushi counter focused on local Hokkaido seafood, with a cocktail bar rounding things out.

At the foot of a volcano, which really does set the mood, this boutique hotel in the Karuizawa mountains threads Japanese architectural detail through a quietly stylish international frame. The 155 rooms lean into the forest setting, some with garden patios, some with woodland views from the tub. A Thai-style spa by HARNN handles relaxation; the single all-day restaurant, Kagaribi, handles meals with, of all things, an Italian accent.

The only Keith Haring museum in the world is here, not in New York, tucked into the foothills of the Yatsugatake Mountains. The boutique hotel next door, designed by the same Japanese architect, has just six rooms named for natural elements, minimalist wood-and-stone interiors, private balconies over the forest, and hot-spring baths open to the night sky. The Michelin Guide selects it among its hotels.

A ten-story ryokan sounds like a contradiction, but Villa Rakuen makes it work by treating every floor as an extension of Awaji Island itself. Tatami rooms, wood-and-stone open-air baths, and private Japanese gardens just off the suites keep the tradition intact. The Hoshi rooms come with a cutaway gazebo roof for stargazing, and a top-floor celestial balcony handles the rest. Seafood and produce from the island's farms, which supply the Imperial household, fill the meals.

A lobby LED installation and DJ booth shift colors and sounds with the season, which sets the tone for what this Niseko ski resort hotel is trying to do. Rooms have wide picture windows onto the mountain, and there's an onsen for after the slopes or after the summer hike. The restaurant leans on Hokkaido produce and Japanese sweets alongside broader international cooking. Snow brings the crowds, but the hotel is built for all four seasons.

Snow Peak is the upscale Japanese outdoor brand whose sprawling Niigata headquarters doubles as a resort, designed by Kengo Kuma. Private villa suites sit inside ornamental wooden ceilings that soften Kuma's trademark minimalism, and the onsen-style bath complex looks out through floor-to-ceiling glass at the surrounding landscape. Guests tend to own at least one titanium camping mug before they arrive.

A converted salt warehouse on a citrus island along the Shimanami Kaido cycling route, SOIL Setoda folds a small hotel into a working community hub, sharing the site with a café and roaster, a waterfront restaurant, and a bento shop. Rooms face either the channel or the old shopping arcade, so you're less a tourist looking in than a temporary resident. Workshops and island producers do the rest; the pace here is Setoda's, not a hotel's.

A hillside ryokan-adjacent retreat above Beppu where the architecture reads modern gallery as much as inn, with a serious collection of contemporary art hanging throughout. The spring-fed baths and the kitchen's Italian-leaning menu sit alongside traditional Japanese hospitality without any obvious friction. From the rooms, you get Beppu Bay on one side and the city's famous geothermic hot springs, the so-called "eight hells," on the other.

A bamboo forest wraps this 30-room boutique hotel so completely that the city outside feels like a rumor. Rooms go clean-lined and pale-wood minimalist, some with outdoor terraces, others with indoor Jacuzzis, which is a decision you'll spend approximately four minutes agonizing over at booking. Three restaurants, a lobby lounge, and a summer pool fill out the picture for a property that manages to feel serene without trying too hard about it.

The steeply peaked rooflines here weren't designed to look dramatic; they have to clear Hokkaido's legendary snowfall. Andaru Collection Niseko is a villa resort in the mountains outside Niseko, its two-story standalone villas shaped by Ainu architectural tradition with an accidental kinship to Alpine A-frames. An Italian restaurant called Ultimo sits under its own peaked roof. Summer hiking exists for those who find powder skiing too relaxing.

A ski-country hotel in Niseko that named itself after the Weisshorn, a shuttered resort now beloved by backcountry and cat-skiing crowds, which tells you something about the clientele. Eight floors of rooms look out over the Niseko ranges and Mount Yotei, and the gap between a minimalist Superior room and an onsen suite fed by actual spring water is considerable. The wellness center has its own onsen, and dinner can go as formal or as low-key as the day demands.

Five suites, a butler for each one, and an en suite soaking bath that competes with the volcanic peak visible from the window. Gekkoju Yufuin is a villa-scale retreat on the quiet edge of Yufu, close enough to the town's streets to explore but tucked away enough to ignore them entirely. The cuisine fuses Japanese and French traditions, and the furnishings lean Western and quietly lavish in a way that stops just short of absurd.

Six rooms, each dressed around a different artist or designer, inside a building whose clean geometric lines borrow from southern Spanish farmhouse tradition without any of the thatch. It's a boutique hotel in the Vison complex in Mie, and the central kitchen, where guests cook alongside a local chef or simply watch, is a genuine draw. The surrounding flower and vegetable garden softens the modernist edges, and Ise Jingu Shrine is close by.

You can ride your bike straight through the front door, which tells you everything about this hotel's commitments. Housed in the Onomichi U2 warehouse complex on Hiroshima's waterfront, Hotel Cycle keeps the double-height ceilings and industrial bones while warming the rooms up enough to actually sleep in. The hooks for hanging your bike are standard issue. Outside, the Shimanami Kaido path connects Honshu and Shikoku across six islands, which is the whole point.

Every room at Kannawaen comes with its own outdoor bathtub fed by the hotel's completely natural hot springs, which tells you exactly what kind of stay this is. The ryokan-style property sits in Beppu, the biggest hot spring resort in western Japan, so the city takes bathing seriously and so does the hotel. Rooms run from Western doubles to traditional futon layouts, all with cypress wood tubs inside. Two restaurants and spa treatments round things out for anyone who surfaces long enough.

The sawtooth rooflines of the freestanding cottages are the first sign that this small wellness resort inside Unzen-Amakusa National Park is not following anyone's rulebook. Rooms and cottages are fitted with modernist furniture and warm textures, all oriented toward Mount Unzen and the Ariake Sea. A sauna complex, outdoor Jacuzzi, and infinity pool round things out, while birds, quite literally the ones that gave the place its name, cut across the sky above.

A ryokan-meets-Italian-auberge is a concept that should not work and yet here we are. This small, centuries-old family estate in Nishi Izu has been converted into a handful of spacious suites and a villa, each nearly self-contained, with en suite spring-fed baths. An Italian restaurant and a French pastry bakery with house-made gelato round things out, because apparently halfway measures weren't considered.

Every room at this ryokan-adjacent retreat in Asama Onsen comes with its own private spring-fed bath, which freed up the old communal soaking hall to become a restaurant, café, bakery, bookshop, and shop. The bones of the original inn, an old-school fixture of this resort town, survived the redesign even if what stands now looks quietly modern. The name translates loosely as "ten stories," referring to chapters of history rather than floors.

Every room at this ryokan-style inn on the Seto Inland Sea comes with its own open-air onsen bath pointed straight at a trio of green islands. The port town of Tomonoura was part of the inspiration for Ponyo, which tells you something about how the light sits on the water here. Rooms blend contemporary comfort with traditional Japanese touches, and the restaurant leans into local seafood.

The top-floor lobby lounge at night, with the Uragami and Nakashima rivers merging below and Mount Inasa framed in the distance, is a persuasive argument for booking high. This hotel sits inside the renovated Nagasaki JR station complex on the hill above town, so the views come with the convenience of arriving. Rooms are clean and spare, which makes sense when the panorama outside is doing most of the decorating.

A rooftop onsen on the twelfth floor, spring-fed and infinity-edged, with the Pacific rolling out below. This Michelin Selected hotel in Atami keeps everything else equally calm: rooms done in a modern take on classic Japanese style, paper screens and understated finishes, none of the maximalist resort theatre you'd find elsewhere. Five restaurants and bars means you can probably avoid leaving, which, given the views, is the idea.

A modern ryokan in the Niseko highlands, with Mount Yotei as a permanent fixture outside every window. All 18 rooms, whether tatami or Western, come with a private spring-fed onsen on the terrace, which makes the cold months feel like a very reasonable trade. The kitchen runs a seasonal menu built on Hokkaido produce year-round, not just ski season, since the landscape is persuasive in July too.

Every room at this small coastal resort looks straight out over Sagami Bay, and each one has its own private hot spring bath so you never have to queue for the thermal waters Atami has been famous for forever. Thirteen rooms split between Western-style suites and two traditional sukiya-zukuri suites keep things quiet, while the restaurant turns local ingredients into French dishes with the bay as backdrop. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

A modern ryokan at the tip of the Bōsō Peninsula where every room, original building or tower addition, comes with a sea view, a balcony, and a private open-air spring-fed bath. The public onsen, perched 50 meters above the water, looks straight up Tokyo Bay. The seafood-focused teppanyaki restaurant sits inside what feels like a clearing in a forest. A Michelin Selected Hotel, and a reasonable place to spend a few nights pretending Tokyo doesn't exist.

Three natural hot spring baths face the forested mountainsides of Yatsugatake National Park, open around the clock and framed by nothing but trees. This classic ryokan, half an hour outside Matsumoto, keeps its rooms spare by design: tatami, shoji screens, and floor-to-ceiling views do all the work. Some rooms add a private open-air onsen bath. A shuttle runs to and from the station, which is two and a half hours from Tokyo and feels like considerably more.

Each suite faces the Pacific with nothing between you and open water except a cliff, which is either thrilling or clarifying depending on your mood. This small clifftop resort in Atami combines hot spring heritage with a nine-seat dinner counter where the cooking runs French in technique and Shizuoka in spirit. The waves are audible all night, which Atami's old hot spring crowd would have considered the whole point.

A hilltop wellness resort outside Iwata where the garden alone contains around 700 varieties of trees, plants, and herbs. Rooms lean into muted greens and neutral tones, with treetop views doing most of the decorating. Three restaurants cover French and Japanese cooking with a seasonal, organic lean, and the spa runs the full circuit: yoga, sauna, beauty salon, and outdoor hot springs. The forest and tea plantations visible from every angle make the nature-as-therapy pitch hard to dismiss.

The stained-glass windows and original redbrick masonry come from the building's life as a 19th-century municipal landmark; the rest has been quietly brought into the present. This Hotel Indigo sits just below Glover Garden, making it a natural base for Nagasaki's cathedral, hillside gardens, and layered port-city history. Rooms are clean and contemporary, and the chapel-style restaurant beneath soaring windows is a good reason to stay in for dinner.

A ryokan built on a forested spit between a Buddhist temple and the Asoumi Sea, with hot-spring onsen steaming away in an open central courtyard. Rooms are done in sukiya wood-frame style with tatami floors and low chabudai tables, and most look out over water on at least one side. The kind of place that makes a Western hotel bed feel faintly embarrassing afterward.

The concept here is "luxury self-hospitality," which sounds like a contradiction until you arrive and realize you're getting a well-appointed room with a private pool or sauna and nobody hovering. This Michelin Selected hotel sits in Ishigaki with a minimalist local design, and the kitchen swings Latin Italian, blending Spanish, Mexican, and Italian flavors rather than defaulting to Okinawan tradition. Freedom and comfort, without the performance of service.

Ago Bay stretches out below the balconies here, and on a calm evening the water does most of the decorating. This 50-suite resort in the Ise-Shima National Park keeps things restrained inside, letting panoramic views of the bay and surrounding forest do the heavy lifting. Two restaurants lean into the local seafood, and the spa, rooftop garden, and library lounge make a convincing case for never leaving the property at all.

Rooms here look directly onto the pitch at Peace Stadium, home of V-Varen Nagasaki, which makes this a hotel with a very specific target guest. Part of a larger development that also holds a basketball arena, a mall, and a recreation complex, the property runs to eleven restaurants and bars, spring-fed baths, and contemporary rooms that lean decidedly upscale. A solid base for exploring the city, even if you have no opinion on local football.

Each suite comes with its own private open-air hot spring bath, which tells you what kind of place this is before you've even unpacked your yukata. Takefue is a traditional ryokan-style resort in Kumamoto's hot spring country, built around dark wood, stone, tatami, and paper screens doing exactly what they've always done. The geothermal activity here is the whole point, and the indoor-outdoor layout makes it hard to tell where the suite ends and the mountain begins.

Three old houses in the samurai district of Kakunodate, one of them an actual samurai residence, have been turned into a small hotel whose name translates to something like "the old Japanese way of living." The other two were a pickle storehouse and a fabric shop, all painstakingly preserved. Breakfast arrives bento-style; dinner means your hosts pointing you toward town. It's less lodging, more an argument that time is negotiable.

Kengo Kuma designed this lakeside resort around the forests of Hokkaido, so the timber walls, trunk-like columns, and wood-clad facades make the building feel less built than grown. Rooms are bright and open, with Lake Toya's volcanic caldera filling the view all the way to the bathroom. The onsen shares that same outlook, which sets a high bar for simply soaking. A cocktail lounge, cigar bar, teppanyaki café, and a local-cuisine restaurant give guests reasons to stay dressed.

A thatched-roof farmhouse shaped by generations of local craft sits deep in the Togakushi mountains, and the other option is a stripped-back former public hall that sleeps just two. This small ryokan-style stay is built around "yui," the old rural mutual-aid philosophy, which means the pace here is unhurried by design. Forest walks, mountain shrines, and meals from local ingredients fill the days. The Michelin Guide has it among its Selected Hotels.

Century-old red pine and Koiwai cedar frame the 24 villas here, each sited around the trees rather than in spite of them. This is a design-forward resort on a vast working farm at the foot of Mount Iwate, deep in Tohoku, well off Japan's usual luxury circuit. Dining leans on the farm and the Sanriku coast, and guests can try Nanbu ironware forging or ride through historic pastures. Remote in the best, quietest sense.

Water buffalo carts are the taxi service on Taketomi Island, which tells you almost everything about the pace here. Hoshinoya's beachfront resort is built to look like a traditional Okinawan village, red-tiled roofs intact, to satisfy the island's heritage codes, though the interiors answer to no such constraints. Pavilion rooms mix tatami or Western layouts with soaking tubs and open-air windows. A spa, pool, and white-sand beach round things out.

A wine concierge and a cellar stocked with Nagano's boutique vintages set the tone at this sleek alpine hotel near Hakuba's ski runs. Corner suites come with open kitchens, elegant stemware already waiting, and a freestanding soaking tub angled toward picture windows, which turns out to be a reasonable argument for one more run. French and teppanyaki dining pairs with Japanese craft wines downstairs.

Each of the six suites in this boutique ski lodge is named for a Finn Juhl furniture piece, so you sleep in the Chieftain Chair room or the Poet Sofa room, which is exactly as considered as it sounds. The Onecollection furniture company converted an old Hakuba ski lodge into a quietly stunning argument for Danish modernism meeting Japanese craft, with Georg Jensen linens, organic bath products, and Alps views from the bar.

Two private villas perched above Ishigaki's southern coast, each with its own heated infinity pool and unobstructed Pacific views. Inside, the open-plan layouts run to lofted bedrooms and an electric piano, which signals the kind of stay where you genuinely lose track of the day. Families or groups book the whole villa, cook together, and end up on the deck watching the stars. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

Every one of the 16 rooms looks straight out to sea, and each has its own private spring-fed onsen bath, which is the kind of sentence that makes people start searching flights. This stylish coastal hotel in Atagawa is a converted ryokan, and the old public bathhouse is now a suite with a private bath the size of a small apartment. The restaurant leans into the flavors of the Izu peninsula, salt air and all.

Two suites, a bamboo grove, and Edo-period joinery make this intimate guesthouse feel less like a hotel and more like borrowing a very old friend's very tasteful house outside Kamakura. Both rooms are split-level with tatami floors and exposed beams, and the deep soaking tubs do their job efficiently. A small counter bar and a teahouse round things out. Truly a two-room operation, so book early or accept defeat gracefully.

Five rooms and suites, all of them angled toward the sea through floor-to-ceiling windows, make Kikka Hirado feel less like a hotel and more like a private perch on Hirado Island's coastline. The restaurant and the wellness deck share the same view, which means there's nowhere to hide from how beautiful it is. Small enough that the staff seem to know what you need before you do.

A lovingly restored old building inside Nozawa Onsen Ski Resort, mont is a luxury boutique hotel where the rooms feel like a considered argument between contemporary design and traditional Japanese craftsmanship, and the argument is never quite settled. The kitchen leans wood-fired and hyper-local, which suits a place that seems more interested in where it is than in impressing you with where it is.

A living green wall climbs the atrium of this 228-room Sheraton, and it sets the tone for what is otherwise a surprisingly considered hotel. Jun Aizaki, the Japanese-born, Brooklyn-based architect, wove traditional Japanese landscape and cultural references through the design without leaning on any of the obvious clichés. The public spaces do the heavy lifting; the dining venues are genuinely varied, and the rooms are handsome if quieter about the whole thing.

Shigeru Ban designed this low-rise boutique hotel to sit among working rice paddies on the Shonai plain, and the architecture keeps making that point, with corridors and common areas that nod to the geometry of cultivation. Rooms lean into natural light and warm wood. The onsen floats in a saucer-shaped pavilion on the water. The restaurant draws from the surrounding farmland and coast. It's a place built around the idea of watching seasons move slowly, which sounds like a brochure promise until you're actually staring at flooded rice fields.

An open-air onsen with forest views sets the tone at this all-seasons mountain resort in the Japanese Alps, where 25 acres of gardens buffer you from the ski crowds even when the slopes are packed. Rooms lean into the woodland-lodge feel with timber accents; suites add balcony jacuzzis. Winter brings French-course dinners and a Japanese dining room focused on Kobe beef, while breakfast runs American or Japanese depending on your mood.

A luxury resort perched two thousand feet above Lake Toya, a nearly circular volcanic lake with a peaked island sitting at its center like a prop from a dream. The Windsor hosted the 2008 G8 summit, which tells you something about the scale of comfort on offer. Western rooms run from serviceable to genuinely sharp minimalist; tatami suites are available for the traditionalists. The view is the thing, though.

A ryokan-style inn just back from Miho Bay where the local timber and the local hot springs do most of the heavy lifting. Guestrooms come in Japanese or Western style and each has a private onsen bath. There's a courtyard garden, a tea room, and a white-porcelain gallery, plus a spa you can rent privately, champagne included if you're feeling it. Traditional in feel, quietly contemporary in execution.

White-walled villa suites with rooftop terraces, private pools, and jacuzzis sit at the edge of Irabu Island, right across the bridge from the main airport. This resort's on-site restaurant sources Miyako wagyu and local reef fish, framing them against the hyper-blue water that locals take as a point of personal pride. Hotel suites look out over the Irabu Bridge; ground-floor terrace rooms face the greenery instead. The Michelin Guide has it among its Selected Hotels.

Four rooms, a farmhouse silhouette, and a small onsen tucked inside a boutique hotel that sits between lavender country and the Furano ski slopes, depending on the season. The Michelin Guide has it among their selected hotels, and it's easy to see why: intimate enough that the husband-and-wife team knows your name before you check in, contemporary enough that nothing about it feels folksy by accident.

Three European-influenced villas on a wooded hillside above the Amakusa coast, split into fifteen rooms, make this ryokan a considered hybrid for visitors not quite ready to go full tatami. The Western touches are restrained rather than theme-park; what fills the gap is hot-spring baths, a dinner-and-breakfast rhythm, and service that moves at a pace most guests forgot existed. Getting here requires planning, but Amakusa has been receiving outside visitors since the 16th century, so the welcome is practiced.

Seven all-suite villas on the southern coast of Irabu Island, close enough to Taiwan that the palms and turquoise water start to feel less like Japan and more like somewhere further adrift. Each villa faces south with a heated private pool, and if you want breakfast delivered on floating platters, that's a sentence you can now say out loud. Some villas add private saunas or a barbecue setup.

Every room at this renovated onsen hotel on the Yamagata coast has its own private bath and a direct view of the Sea of Japan, which covers the basics handsomely. The rooms range from tatami-and-cypress traditional to a suite five stories up fitted entirely in white and glass, with one wild card: a room with a copper ceiling inspired by a nearby shrine. The communal stone baths and the town's only natural spring-fed drinking fountain round things out.

A five-room guesthouse on the road into Kirishima Kinkowan National Park, Kasan frames its whole existence around "mind-body unity," which sounds like brochure copy until you see the rooms. Each one is different, mixing modern design with traditional craft, and two come with private hot spring baths while two more have detached bathhouses. Whether the philosophy lands or not, the physical delivery of it is hard to argue with.

The whole house, not a room. Kiya Ryokan, tucked into the quiet coastal city of Uwajima, rents as a single unit for up to eight guests, which makes it less a traditional inn than a private country house that happens to have tatami mats and shoji screens. A recent restoration folded in modern lighting and contemporary furniture without making a fuss about the contrast. The Michelin Guide has selected it, and the remoteness is, depending on your mood, the point.

Every room at this ryokan-style resort in the Nasu Highlands comes with its own private onsen, partly open to the forest air, plus cedar paneling and bespoke bedding for when you finally step out. Minimalist design and floor-to-ceiling glass keep the surrounding woodland front and center. The communal library stocks art books and Karuizawa whiskies beside a fireplace, which is either meditative or dangerously comfortable, depending on your schedule.

A riverside inn in a hot spring village where a 600-year-old bathing tradition is still very much the point. Rooms face the Otozure River, the historic Onto bathhouse runs on fresh mineral waters, and a wood-fired restaurant handles dinner. Days fill up between saunas, Hagi-yaki kiln visits, and paddleboarding in the surrounding mountains, which is a more convincing argument for slowing down than any spa brochure has ever managed.

A bar built from a thirty-foot tree trunk tells you something about this ryokan's relationship with the forest around it. Hinanoza sits on Lake Akan in old-growth Eastern Hokkaido, within reach of four national parks, though the private open-air baths and kaiseki meals served in tatami rooms make a strong argument for never leaving the suite. Local woodcarving fills the interiors, and the place smells accordingly. No guests under twelve, which keeps the mood exactly as the name promises.

Thirteen standalone beachfront villas on Amami Oshima, each a concrete modernist object sitting directly on the sand, and none of them with a television. The Michelin Guide has selected it among its hotels. Full-length windows face the ocean, exposed timber ceilings and wooden decks soften the brutalism, and seven villas are screened by trees for guests who want the view without the squint. Each villa has a kitchenette, and the owners suggest you shop local and cook on the beach, which is either charming or a lot of work depending on your holiday mood.

The Sea of Japan fills every window at this minimalist resort on the Oki Islands, a volcanic archipelago so remote it makes "off the beaten path" sound like an understatement. Entô's 36 rooms across two low-slung buildings are designed to fade into the landscape rather than compete with it, and the restaurant leans hard on whatever the island provides. The Michelin Guide has selected it among its hotels.

Every suite comes with its own hot spring bath, which makes it hard to explain why anyone bothers leaving the room. Five Spring Resort is a contemporary all-inclusive resort in Wakayama's beach town of Shirahama, built around geothermal springs and kaiseki dinners, with a lagoon pool threading across the property and forested hillsides on all sides. The aesthetic is modern Japanese rather than traditional inn, though the hospitality runs along the same unhurried lines.

Perched on Irabu Island, halfway between Okinawa and Taiwan, this seaside resort sits somewhere the phrase "getting away from it all" stops feeling like a cliché. Most of the 58 rooms and suites face the ocean, and even the garden-facing ones lean into a spare, restful minimalism. The spa draws on local Okinawan ingredients, and the French restaurant does the same. Proof that the Miyako Islands reward the extra effort to reach them.

A small, densely forested island at the mouth of Katsuura Bay is the whole argument for this ryokan, which occupies the only building on it. Hot-spring baths, tatami rooms, and Western-style rooms in bold contemporary colors fill the newer wing. Evenings bring a kaiseki dinner built almost entirely from the local coastline, which is the ryokan way of reminding you exactly where you are.

Cottage-style villas on a remote stretch of Amami Ōshima beachfront, with Akaogi Bay sitting right outside. Each villa comes with exposed beams, tatami, a deep soaking tub, and a private furnished deck, so you never have to share a view with strangers unless you choose to. The reception desk organizes guided treks and wildlife tours through the surrounding forest. It's the kind of resort where the isolation is the whole point.

Five villas on the far southeastern tip of Miyako Island, itself already a detour from Okinawa, which is itself a detour from anywhere. Each villa at this small, private resort reads like a meditation on stone and tile, softened by cool textiles and just enough tropical green, with its own terrace and infinity pool aimed squarely at the Philippine Sea. After dark, the stars take over completely.

Perched on stilts above Miyako Island's southern coast, this boutique resort looks like a stack of futuristic glass boxes from the outside and barely more than that inside, which is the point. Slate floors, white linens, and sliding doors onto private patios keep nothing between you and the water. Breakfast is a carefully arranged spread of organic island produce. Imugya Marine Garden, a snorkeler's haunt, is directly across the street.

Four rooms and suites sit at the southernmost tip of Shikoku, inside Ashizuri-Uwakai National Park, with the Pacific filling every window. TheMana Village is a small, minimalist-luxe resort where the landscape does most of the heavy lifting, and the Italian restaurant on site, Azzurrissimo, takes its cues from the same ocean view. A Michelin Selected Hotel, and the kind of place where "remote" feels less like a sacrifice than a point.

Two private villas on the edge of Lake Kussharo, the largest crater lake in Japan, inside the remote Akan-Mashu National Park in Eastern Hokkaido. RERA lets waves slap against its floor-to-ceiling windows; FURE, the two-story option, runs quieter. Both have wood-burning fireplaces, hot-spring baths, and multiple bedrooms. A short path connects to the lakeside restaurant, where the team serves traditional Japanese cuisine over water views.

Kiha is a train-themed standing bar where the decor commits harder than most commuters do. Ambient rail sounds play, empty ekiben boxes line the staircase, and upstairs there's a full replica of a train car, with conductor outfits for photos. You pay by the clock rather than the drink, so the snacks stay simple: canned sardines under cheese, karaage, fries. It's The Infatuation's pick for both Tokyo's best bars and izakayas.

By day this is a fishcake shop with trays of neatly arranged product and no particular interest in your evening plans. At 7pm it flips into a standing-room oden bar tucked into Harmonica Yokocho, where you eat simmered fishcakes off your feet and drink sake in cheap, small cups. Tell the staff when you're halfway through and they'll top it off with oden broth, which locals insist helps the hangover. Nobody has verified this, but it's warm.

Ball is a tiny natural wine bar in Koto City, built around a U-shaped standing counter where every glass costs the same ¥1,000, so ordering requires no math and very little courage. The list runs to bottles from Japan and France, and the food is the kind of small-plate cooking that makes you forget the lack of chairs, including chicken drumlets fried to look like tulips. It fills up by 6pm on a Monday, so arrive early.

Bar Lupin is a windowless basement cocktail bar in Ginza, named after the gentleman thief and long a drinking spot for Japan's literary heavyweights. Dazai and Ranpo both put in their hours here. The room runs dark and Showa-era, with weathered books on the shelves and black-and-white portraits of famous patrons watching you order. The Golden Fizz comes with whipped egg yolk and a writer's endorsement.

Bar Orchard is a Ginza cocktail bar where the menu is a heap of fresh fruit and you point at one, like a very expensive farmers market. The bartender builds something tiki-ish around your pick, then serves it in a ceramic shark, a turkey leg, or a tiny bathtub with suds on top. A flock of rubber ducks in outfits watches from the bar. Seats vanish fast, so arrive when the doors open at 6.

A sake bar up a flight of stairs in Nishiazabu, where the sign reads "strawberry meeting," a translation of ichigo ichie that sounds like a very polite jam session. The list runs past 200 bottles, from sparkling to cloudy doburoku, plus a few made with local breweries that you won't find elsewhere. The egg in black squid ink mayonnaise looks like a river rock until you crack it, which is the whole bit.

Eight seats, one bartender, and a flower chosen to match each drink: Gen Yamamoto runs cocktails the way Kyoto runs kaiseki. You choose a flight of four, six, or seven courses, each one built around whatever ingredient the season hands over, each served in its own piece of glassware. It is a cocktail bar in the way a tea ceremony is a cup of tea. Yamamoto-san holds a spot on The 50 Discovery list.

A small jazz listening bar on the fifth floor in Shinjuku, where the soundtrack is smooth, the drinks are dive-bar cheap, and roughly a thousand cat figurines watch you order. A five-foot white maneki neko presides over the shelves like a landlord. The cocktail list leans feline, including a peach-schnapps number topped with a neon green cherry, and most pours cost about what a train ride does.

Little Soul Cafe is a listening bar in Setagaya where the owner shakes your drink, then crosses the room to pick the next record from a wall of vinyl that runs well past ten thousand. Soul and funk come through a very good sound system, and you'll sit at a seven-seat counter or sink into a couch that feels borrowed from a friend. The menu is short except for the rum, which gets four pages. Smoking is still allowed.

Omnipollos is a craft beer bar from a Stockholm brewery, tucked into a former eel restaurant with a traditional tile roof, rainbow neon, and a yellow smiling-face lantern, all dropped into a grey business district. Inside it goes psychedelic, with baby blue walls, cloud-shaped lanterns, and ombre tabletops. Half the taps are Japanese, and the beer slushy with soft serve is a cheerful way to ignore your commute. It's on The Infatuation's Best Bars In Tokyo list.

Rock Fish is a standing bar in Ginza where the kakubin highball is the whole conversation, and regulars put them away by the dozen. The whisky is a Suntory bottling that reaches almost no one else, the soda is a Japanese brand sharp enough to feel in your throat, and there's no ice, so the glass is simply chilled until it behaves. The Infatuation lists it among Tokyo's best bars. A fried sesame sphere handles snack duty.

Cocktails served on raised pedestals tell you what kind of bar this is before you've even tasted anything. Ark Lounge is a serious cocktail bar in Hachinohe, a coastal city far enough from Tokyo that its presence still surprises people, which is part of the point. The drinks lean elegant and precise, with local ingredients worked into compositions that look considered from every angle. It appears on Difford's Guide and holds a The 50 Discovery listing.

Stained-glass windows filter light onto a wood-paneled room overlooking the Katagawa River, which is a quietly dramatic setting for a serious whisky bar. Bar D keeps an extensive whisky selection alongside vintage spirits and cigars, and cocktails are made to order for each guest, drawing on classics without being slaves to them. It's a relaxed place that somehow also feels like a special occasion, which is a neat trick to pull off.