Michinoku-an

Michinoku-an sits on a forested hilltop above Kamasaki Onsen in southern Miyagi, a nine-room wooden hermitage where the okami still greets every guest and kaiseki is served on tatami by nakai who remember your name from last year. The monthly-changing cuisine draws from contract farmers within four kilometres, anchored by tribute-quality rice from the Shiroishi plain, and the inn's own fruit liqueurs made by the okami and her daughter-in-law.

The proprietary cold mineral spring — Unjo no Yu — requires heating but carries six centuries of Kamasaki's medicinal bathing tradition on its skin. What guests carry home is the particular quiet of dining alone in a room that faces nothing but evergreen forest, attended by people who have chosen smallness as a form of devotion.