The Best Places to Eat and Stay in Japan

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.

A New York roaster that planted a flag in Osaka's quieter Kitahama district, this specialty coffee shop leans into minimalist design and natural light in a way that makes laptops appear almost as often as flat whites. The pour-overs get the attention they deserve, and the baristas can actually explain why. A good place to remember that Osaka has neighborhoods where nothing is especially loud.

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.