- 84 rooms across 14 floors, Otemachi
- Tatami throughout, shoes left at reception
- Private onsen drawn from natural hot spring, top floor
- Kaiseki dining, Author's omakase counter
- 10 min walk from Tokyo Station
The conceit at Hoshinoya is the ryokan transposed onto a fourteen-floor tower — each floor a closed sanctuary of six rooms, the tatami corridor connecting them, and the Otemachi Onsen on the top floor drawn from a natural spring 1,500 metres below the city. You leave your shoes at the door and do not put them back on until departure.
Book a Sakura room on a high floor, eat the kaiseki on the first night, and use the onsen at five in the morning before the city wakes. The right answer for the American guest who has done Tokyo twice already and wants a third trip that does not look like the first two.
The shoeless week in the city.
