The Best Hotels Near JIJIJIN Matsuyama, by the Record
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The local pottery tradition lands on every table at this ten-room luxury inn near Matsuyama, where Tobe ceramics hold a French-Japanese kitchen's output. The architecture reads as almost Alpine beside its lake, and the spa runs European rather than onsen-style. Rooms are modern-minimalist and face the water. Japan's auberge tradition is younger than the ryokan but finding its footing, and this place is a good argument for it.
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Tadao Ando designed this mountaintop retreat in Ehime, and concrete here somehow reads as weightless. Seven suites run white on white, with the occasional blonde-wood chair allowed in on good behavior, and the floor-to-ceiling windows frame the Seto Inland Sea as the main event. The rock garden, the pool, the udon in the restaurant, all of it sustains the same considered quiet. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Key.
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Saijo sits at the foot of Mount Ishizuchi and the groundwater practically bubbles up through the pavement, which explains why a University of Tokyo eco-project chose it for Japan's first zero-energy hotel. The building is all angular rooflines and open-air walkways, rooms kept spare with blonde wood and pale green tile, beds on raised platforms. Shared coworking space, a café, and riverside gardens round things out for a hotel that takes its minimalism as seriously as its environmental brief.
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A short ferry hop from Hiroshima puts you on Etajima, a quiet island in the Seto Inland Sea where this small ryokan-style hotel sits with rooms overlooking the water or forested hills. Handmade washi art by Eriko Horiki lines the interiors, and the mineral hot spring baths do exactly what you came for. The restaurant runs multi-course meals pairing French technique with local seafood. It's the kind of place where the ferry schedule becomes your whole schedule.
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Cypress soaking tubs, tatami rooms, sliding screens opening to private stone gardens: this ryokan on the remote island of Ikuchijima in Japan's Inland Sea was built inside a merchant estate that Adrian Zecha, the Aman founder, chose to restore rather than replace. The restaurant serves local and seasonal ingredients with French technique, meals are communal by default, and a traditional bathhouse across the street is shared with locals. It holds a Michelin Key.
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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.
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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.
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Shigeru Ban designed this resort complex on the Hiroshima coast, where mountains meet the sea and a modern art museum sits at the center of it all. The ten villas are each distinct, from the Wall-Less House to the Paper House built from recycled paper tubes, while waterfront rooms have baths of cypress or Towada stone. A French restaurant and a light-filled lounge round it out. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.
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A modern ryokan on the island of Itsukushima, where many rooms look out over the Seto Inland Sea, Mt. Misen, or both. The interiors mix classic 20th-century European and American design pieces with the handiwork of Japanese artisans, a pairing that somehow feels deliberate rather than indecisive. The restaurant applies French techniques to Setouchi produce and local seafood. A short ferry hop from Hiroshima, which makes it very easy to talk yourself into staying.