Roku Kyoto, LXR Hotels & Resorts, Japan
Featured on our 2022 Hot List of the best new hotels in the world
More luxury resort than city hotel, Roku Kyoto is a place to stop, slow down, and recharge after the exhausting task of sightseeing in Japan’s ancient capital. The atmosphere treads a finely honed line between contemporary design and traditional Kyoto, with modern echoes of temple aesthetics in the hotel’s minimalist architecture: clean-lined expanses of light woods and external walkways beneath pitched roofs, all connected by cloud-reflecting water pools and gardens of seasonal blooms. The heartbeat of the hotel is restaurant Tenjin (especially the dinner-only Chef’s Table), though the hotel features another veritable head-turner for Kyoto: an outdoor hot-spring thermal swimming pool. Danielle Demetriou
Mama Arashiyama, Kyoto
Featured on our 2022 Hot List of the best new hotels in the world
Modern, minimalist, and beautifully crafted, Mama Arashiyama is a new 10-room hotel and restaurant wrapped in gardens, just a short walk from the famed bamboo forests of Arashiyama. It offers a textbook-perfect snapshot of contemporary Kyoto style—fusing materials crafted by modern artisans with Scandinavian furniture, stone baths overlooking private gardens, and a low-key but stylish pizza restaurant (yes, really). Simple and minimal with a natural edge, it’s a world away from the luxury sheen of five-star hotels, but it’s still the kind of place that makes you instantly want to redesign your own home. All in all, Arashiyama feels like the ultimate Kyoto insider secret. Danielle Demetriou