Miyajima Villa Hatago Sakura

Hatago Sakura opened in the spring of 2015 on a hillside plot above Miyahama Onsen, across the water from Miyajima Island. The property has four rooms. Everything here follows from that number: the private hot spring bath in every room, the dining reserved for no more than eight guests per service, the quality of attention that becomes possible when the inn holds fewer people than most restaurants seat at a single table.

The kitchen is the reason to come. Head chef Yūji Danzuka, who trained through the kaiseki tradition of Kyoto and spent years cooking across Fukuoka, Tokyo, and Oita before taking charge here in 2020, composes each evening's menu for two groups at most. It was this ratio, and the standard of cooking it produces, that earned Hatago Sakura two stars in the Michelin Guide Hiroshima and Ehime 2018 Special Edition. The courses draw on the Seto Inland Sea directly below, on the mountain greens of the Chugoku interior, and on Chef Danzuka's sense of when a single ingredient warrants a course of its own.

The onsen here is classified as 単純放射能冷鉱泉, a simple radioactive cold mineral spring, with a radon concentration measured at 130 Mache. That figure places it among the highest-concentration radon sources in Japan. The water flows into private semi-open-air baths inside each of the four rooms: stone basins in Hana and Tori, a natural slate tub in Kaze, and polished marble in Tsuki. The baths face outward toward the treeline and, past it, the silhouette of Itsukushima Shrine's great torii standing in the tidal waters of the Seto Inland Sea.

Location contributes its own particular quality. Miyajima Island and its UNESCO World Heritage Site are visible across the channel. The shoreline is protected within Setonaikai National Park. Spring brings cherry blossoms to the hillsides facing the strait; autumn turns the forest above the property in reds and ochre. Either season rewards the decision to face the private bath outward, especially in the evening, when the ferry lights cross the water below and the shrine lights hold their reflection against the tide.

Hatago Sakura is a property of recent construction, built in a contemporary architectural register. The rooms are tatami, the service is kaiseki, and the hospitality is entirely in the traditional ryokan form. The patina of old timber and layered craft that distinguishes Japan's oldest inns is not present here. The atmosphere comes from the water, the forest, and the view rather than from the building itself. That is a fair exchange for a great many guests.

The meal ends late. After the final course, the night is very quiet, the bath is still warm, and the only sound is water running over stone.