Luxury hotel SOWAKA

23 Best Hotels in Japan for 2025 Stays | Condé Nast Traveler

"Once a high-end tea house filled with dancing geishas, this Gion retreat now channels Sukiya-zukuri elegance through a contemporary lens—offering ryokan reverence without the rules: a sleek black-on-black restaurant replaces strict in-room mealtimes, and cashmere mattresses supplant nightly futon roll-outs. A lantern-lit path slips to a genkan threshold, beyond which creaking corridors, circular shoji, plaster walls, and Nordic-inflected furniture set the mood. Each room is distinct—some with conch-handled screens and partitioned spaces, others with a dedicated tea-ceremony nook—layered with modernist chairs, cedarwood Bluetooth speakers, and graffiti-like scrolls. Renovated by Shigenori Uoya alongside 100 artisans, the main house now pairs with a 12-room annex of minimalist calm and rooftop-framing windows, where an intuitive convivial spirit endures." - Danielle Demetriou, Adam H. Graham