Iwaso

Iwaso is Momijidani. For 170 years this inn has occupied the maple valley at the foot of sacred Mount Misen, its miya-daiku-built cottages dissolving into UNESCO-designated primeval forest.

The Michelin-starred kaiseki, anchored by Seto Inland Sea anago and Hiroshima oysters, earned it the G7 Summit dinner table in 2023. The Wakamiya onsen (a private radon cold mineral spring discovered in 1885) is genuine but modest, heated rather than free-flowing, and the bath facilities do not match the ambition of the kitchen or the grandeur of the setting.

The shinkan, housing 29 of 38 rooms, delivers a competent but standardised experience that sits below the hanare cottages where Yoshikawa Eiji wrote and emperors slept. What elevates Iwaso beyond competence is its absolute rootedness: the inn that invented momiji manju, that has wild deer at its entrance and cherry blossom over its river, cannot be imagined anywhere else in Japan.