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Four Seasons Hotel Kyoto

Kyoto, Japan

Four Seasons Hotel Kyoto

Enter via the Shakusuien, a 10,000-square-metre garden where an 800-year-old pond completes a landscape immortalised in the Japanese military epic, The Tale of the Heike. Embracing the ancestral design codes of local residences, architecture here blends cedar, dark wood, stone, and glass. The porte-cochère welcomes visitors with a structure mimicking the delicate grace of Japanese parasols, featuring a framework of slender wooden ribs. Inside, that same symbiotic philosophy is tangible. Kyoto craftsmanship adorns sliding panels and airy light fixtures, all enhanced by lacquerwork in deep, rich hues. In the spa, treatments like the Royal Enso, which begins with a sake bath and concludes with a honey massage, are best taken before an omakase meal of exquisite, meticulous refinement, served at a counter carved from a 400-year-old cypress tree.

Accommodations

What we like

The moment

A private visit to Fushimi Inari Taisha and its gentle lantern light at dawn.

The design

The elegantly vaulted timberwork of the Two-Bedroom Presidential Suite.

The flavour

To finish the omakase at Sushi Ginza Onodera, a Matcha Blancmange: a dessert of quiet balance.

Location

Address

445-3, Myohoin Maekawa-cho, Higashiyama-ku,

6050932 Kyoto, Japan

Airport

An hour and a half from Kansai International Airport by private transfer.

Southern Higashiyama

Fifteen minutes on foot from Kiyomizu-dera, and slightly less from the National Museum. Gion and Kikunoi are within easy reach by car.

At a glance

Public areas: free

In room: free

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