The Best Hotels Near Ipponsugi Kawashima, by the Record
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Eight rooms, all with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over Noto Island's water, which is the kind of ratio that keeps things quiet. This boutique hotel mixes tatami mats and blonde wood platform beds with dark-tiled soaking tubs pointed at the ocean, a combination that sounds like it was designed by someone who couldn't pick between Kyoto and Copenhagen. Some rooms have private terraces and saunas; the spa adds fragrant outdoor baths and a wood-burning sauna. It holds a Michelin Key.
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Six historic buildings, including a converted carpenter's shop, make up this boutique hotel in Inami, a small town whose woodcarving tradition traces back to a temple that kept burning down and getting rebuilt more elaborately each time. Guests are encouraged to try carving their own keepsakes in the workshops on site, which is either a charming cultural immersion or a polite reminder that you're in the craftspeople's neighborhood now.
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The rooftop bar on the 14th floor looks out over a city that still takes its geisha and samurai history seriously, which makes the boutique-chic interiors and tapas-inspired all-day grill feel like an interesting argument. This contemporary hotel plants the Hyatt Centric brand squarely in one of Japan's most tradition-minded cities, and the tension is mostly the point. The Michelin Guide lists it among its selected hotels.
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A small hotel inside a building that once served as a training facility for a Mingei woodworker, the folk craft movement that treated everyday objects as art. Rooms are spare and deliberate, each furnished with handmade pieces; the triple has a leather chair that belonged to the original builder. Breakfast and light meals come from the on-site café, and dinner sends you out into Nanto's walkable center, which is a reasonable trade for sleeping inside a living museum.
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Bare concrete and tatami rooms coexist here without apology, which tells you most of what you need to know about this design-forward hotel in Kanazawa, a city Japanese travelers have long kept to themselves. Rooms run from Western standards to loft and bunk configurations, and the bathrooms read like a minimalist fever dream. A tea salon anchors the ground floor; a rooftop deck offers air. The Michelin Guide has it among its Selected Hotels.
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A former art gallery on the edge of Kanazawa's central park, Korinkyo converted the bones rather than hiding them, so the high-arched windows and industrial frame still read exactly as they did. It's a minimalist boutique hotel now, with pale beige-and-gray rooms, exposed beams, and curving walls. Teacups and bathrobes were made by local artisans, and the air carries a faint scent from an on-site distillery. Rooftop cypress baths overlook the treetops.