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.