Park Hyatt Kyoto

The Ninenzaka slope climbs through Higashiyama between wooden shopfronts and tea houses, and at its upper end, next to the gate of Kodaiji temple, a stone wall encloses the garden of Kyoyamato, a restaurant that has served kaiseki on this site since 1877. Park Hyatt Kyoto was built around that garden and opened on 30 October 2019, the Hyatt group's second Park Hyatt in Japan after Tokyo.

History

Kodaiji was founded in 1606 by Nene, the widow of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, in his memory, and the lanes below it have carried pilgrims and visitors to Kiyomizu-dera for centuries. Kyoyamato opened its doors in the Meiji era and became one of the city's established ryotei, with tatami rooms around a garden of pines and a pond. When Hyatt and Takenaka Corporation planned a hotel for the site, the restaurant was kept, restored and made part of the hotel, so that guests dine in rooms where Kyoto has been dining for 140 years.

Architecture and design

Takenaka Corporation built the hotel on a slope, with the structure stepped down the hillside so that no part of it rises above the surrounding roofs, in keeping with the height limits of the preservation district. The materials are dark timber, plaster, stone and tile. Tony Chi, the New York designer behind several Park Hyatt properties, did the interiors, working with the Kyoto crafts of lacquer, paper and joinery rather than against them. The approach is through a small courtyard garden; the main terrace looks straight across the tiled roofs to Hokanji, the five-storey Yasaka Pagoda, the single most photographed view in the district.

Rooms and suites

The hotel has 70 rooms and suites, small by the standards of the brand and intentionally so. Rooms are laid out with a sitting area at the window, a deep bath in a stone-floored bathroom and a wardrobe lined in paper. Some face the pagoda, others the garden of Kyoyamato or the hillside. The suites add a separate living room; the largest look over the city towards the western hills.

Dining

Kyoyamato is the heart of the hotel, serving kaiseki in its original tatami rooms with the garden outside. Within the hotel itself, Yasaka is the teppanyaki counter, with a view of the pagoda from the grill; Kyoto Bistro on the lower level serves breakfast and an informal menu through the day; The Living Room is the lounge for tea and a drink in the afternoon, and Kohaku is the bar, a dark room for whisky after dinner.

Wellness

There is a small spa with treatment rooms and a fitness room. The hotel has no pool.

Weddings and events

Weddings are held in the garden and in the private rooms of Kyoyamato, which suit the small Japanese and foreign ceremonies that come to Higashiyama. The hotel has limited function space for dinners and meetings of modest size; large conferences go elsewhere in the city.

Location

The hotel is in the Higashiyama ward, at the top of Ninenzaka and a short walk below Kiyomizu-dera. Gion and Hanamikoji are ten minutes downhill on foot; Yasaka Shrine and Maruyama Park are closer. Kyoto station is twenty minutes by car, Osaka's Kansai International Airport about 90 minutes by road or train, Osaka Itami airport about an hour. For a luxury hotel in Kyoto, the position inside the preservation district is the thing that cannot be bought elsewhere.