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A long bench on the terrace at Park Hyatt Kyoto with the Yasaka pagoda beyond at sunset

Inspection · Higashiyama, Kyoto, Japan

Park Hyatt Kyoto

A guesthouse on the hill above Higashiyama, and the only sane way to have that district to yourself.

Pagoda View, booked as Garden View Hyatt Privé

Book Park Hyatt Kyoto with me, through Classic Travel Register first, free of charge, and the rates and partner benefits open up, with the account linked to Wheresnik. Tell me your dates before you book and I will say which room to ask for here, and which week I would avoid.

The hotel calls itself a guesthouse, which on first reading looks like modesty from a brand that has no need of it, and after a night there seems about right. It is not large and it does not announce itself. It sits on the hill above Higashiyama, in the quieter corner of a district that by the first week of April has more people in it than it was built for, and it is collected in on itself in a way that keeps all of that outside.

A timber colonnade at Park Hyatt Kyoto running beside a garden of stone, moss and raked gravel
The colonnade along the garden. You walk this more often than you need to, which is the intention.

I had one night, and only one, because every other date I tried was full. That is worth knowing before anything else I write here. This is a hotel you book a long way out, and if you leave it late you will take what is left, which is what I did.

The place

Inside, the building runs over several levels, and you reach the rooms by lift, as you do the bar and the restaurant. The garden is the part I keep going back to in my head: stone, moss, raked gravel and a timber walkway along the edge of it, and it does the thing a Japanese garden is supposed to do, which is lower your pulse without asking permission.

A timber corridor at the entrance with a tall branch of white blossom in a vase
The first thing inside the door is a branch, and it is changed as the season turns.
A quiet timber lobby with a single lit candle on a slim table
One candle on a table. The whole hotel is argued in this photograph.
A branch of pink cherry blossom against a lit stone wall in the lobby
Blossom indoors, in the week when the hill outside is full of it.

My usual test, which is whether the kitchens reach the corridors, is not only passed here. The building smells good, consistently, and somebody has decided that it should.

The covered walkway with its timber posts and lanterns running the length of the garden
Lanterns at ankle height, so the path is lit and the garden stays dark.
The end of the covered walkway opening onto the garden and the hotel name on the wall
The walkway ends where the hotel finally says its own name, quietly.
A sofa at a wide window with the Yasaka pagoda and the tiled roofs of Kyoto beyond
The pagoda from the room, which is lovely and which I would still not hold out for.

The room

I booked a garden view and was given a pagoda view, and I also saw the one other room that happened to be free that day. The room is essential in the exact sense: clean lines, nothing surplus, nothing opulent, nothing shouted. The sheets look like ice, they are pressed and drawn so tight.

A bed made up in white with the garden through the window behind it
The sheets are the detail people remember, and they are right to.
A bathroom in timber and stone with a long mirror and a deep tub
Stone, timber, and nothing on the surfaces that does not need to be there.
A bedside table with a lamp, a tray and a dark blue drawer unit beside the bed
A bedside table with room on it for your own things, which is rarer than it should be.

The best description I can give is one I thought of in the room and have not improved on since. It is a white shirt, cut to measure, worn over clean Japanese denim. Nothing in it is trying, and everything in it is exact.

A welcome tray with champagne in ice, two glasses and a bowl of strawberries
The welcome. In April the strawberries are the local boast, and they earn it.
The timber entrance to Yasaka with the restaurant name carved into the wall
Yasaka announces itself in two characters and a small line of Latin letters.
A chef working at the counter at Yasaka with the pagoda framed in the window beyond
The counter faces the window, so the cooking happens in front of the pagoda.

Eating, and the bar that matters

Yasaka is the signature restaurant, with the counter facing the window and the pagoda sitting in the frame behind the cooking. Kyoto Bistro is the quick one for a day when you have walked fifteen kilometres. Kyoyamato, with two Michelin stars, is on the property as well, which is an unusual thing for a hotel to be able to say and which it says very quietly.

A bowl of raw vegetables and a dish of hummus with an egg yolk on a timber table
Vegetables and a dish to dip them in, which is more Kyoto than it sounds.
The dining room at Kyoto Bistro with a sculptural chandelier, timber tables and plants
Kyoto Bistro, which is the one for the evening you have walked fifteen kilometres.
The bar counter in timber running towards a window with the pagoda beyond
The counter at Kohaku points at the window, which is the whole design.

The part I would not let you miss is Kohaku, the cocktail bar. It is quieter than The Living Room downstairs and the view from it is better by a wide margin. Go up for sunset. The drinks are made by someone who takes the job seriously, there is enough food at the bar to carry you to dinner, and the pagoda sits there in the window going from gold to black while you watch.

A cut glass of whisky on the bar with the pagoda and the hills beyond at sunset
One drink, at the right hour, in the right chair. This is the photograph I kept.
The breakfast room with timber tables and a long counter of food
Breakfast, taken early and on purpose.
A lounge with yellow armchairs around a low table and a fire in a stone wall
The Living Room, which is the social one, and which is the reason Kohaku is the quiet one.
A counter of jars and pastries behind a timber lattice with a branch of magnolia on it
The counter by the breakfast room, restocked before anybody is awake to see it.
Cherry blossom overhead on a dark lane with the lit pagoda beyond the rooftops
Blossom at night, with the pagoda lit behind it and nobody underneath it.
A stepped lane of timber houses lit by lanterns with the pagoda rising at the end
The same street the guidebooks photograph, at the hour they do not.

Kyoto, from here

The lantern-lit lane of Ninenzaka at night with the Yasaka pagoda above the wooden houses
Ninenzaka at midnight, five minutes from the door. In daylight you cannot see the stones for people.

This is what you are paying for and it took me one night to understand it properly. By day the lanes below are a slow crowd, and nothing you do changes that. At midnight they are empty, lit by the lanterns, and four hundred years deep. Japan is about as safe as a country gets, so you put your coat on, walk out, have the street to yourself for an hour, and come back to bed.

Then do the same thing at the other end. Breakfast early, go out while the light is still arriving and the lanes still belong to the people who live on them, and come back when everybody else is starting. Two hours a day that nobody staying across town will ever get.

Advisor's perspective

Take this hotel for the position and the hours it gives you, and take whichever room is free. It suits a traveller who wants Kyoto at its quietest and is prepared to organise around that, and it suits two people more than a family. Anyone who needs a large hotel with a long list of facilities should look elsewhere in the city, and there are good answers there.

It works in every season. The blossom week costs the most and sells out the furthest ahead, which is the price of seeing Higashiyama in the state everybody photographs. My own suspicion is that the same building under snow, with the garden white and the lanes empty for a different reason, would be just as good and considerably easier to book. I plan to test that.

Three nights, booked early. One night is enough to see that it is right and too short to use it, which I can say with some authority.

A coaster printed Park Hyatt Kyoto under the base of a glass
The coaster under the last drink, which is as far as the souvenir went.

Before you book

The questions people send me about Park Hyatt Kyoto.

Is the pagoda-view room worth paying up for?
I had one and I would not chase it. The hotel is close to permanently full, so the real contest is getting a room at all, and the view of the pagoda in peace is available to you at the bar with a drink in your hand, which is where you will actually sit and look at it. Book the room you can get and spend the difference on dinner.
Is it unbearable during the cherry blossom?
The district is, in daylight. Ninenzaka in the first week of April is a slow-moving crowd. The hotel is not, and that is the point of it: it sits in a quieter corner of Higashiyama, set apart and collected in on itself, and the garden inside is genuinely still. You buy your way out of the crowd at both ends of the day.
Do I need to book the restaurants?
Yes, and the bar as well. Yasaka is the signature restaurant, Kyoto Bistro is the quick one, and the two-star Kyoyamato is on the property too. All of them take bookings from people who are not staying in the hotel, so the tables go. Ask the concierge when you confirm the room, and stop worrying about it.
How many nights?
More than the one I managed. I had a single night because the place was full on every other date I tried, and I would go back for three. Book far ahead for the blossom and you will have the choice; leave it late and you will take what is there, as I did.
Which season?
It works in all of them. The blossom costs more and sells out furthest ahead, which is the trade for seeing Higashiyama at its most photographed. My own instinct is that the same hotel under snow would be at least as good, and quieter, and I intend to find out.

Something else you want to know? Write to me and I will answer it here.

A lantern-lit timber teahouse on the hillside among cherry blossom A figure in a kimono crossing the terrace with the pagoda beyond A covered corridor running between a clipped hedge and the garden A chair at a window with the Yasaka pagoda framed beyond it A long table set in a room lined with bottles A lantern-lit lane in Higashiyama at night with the pagoda above the rooftops

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