Jusandi

What an amazing find! A paradise tucked away in the Ishigaki jungle and overlooking the sea. Our villa was large, airy and immaculate with its own outdoor pool and a large indoor tub overlooking the garden. The villas are cleverly designed so you are not overlooked. The staff were friendly and helpful. The highlight was the dinners. We stayed for two nights and couldn’t believe the incredibly high standard of the feast that was provided each evening. The flavours of the fusion food using local ingredients were the best we had come across in Japan and surpassed the quality of some of the best London restaurants. If you visit Jusandi do not miss out on the dinners.

Jusandi is 5 star in every aspect. The attentive service, the stunning accommodations, the lush landscape, everything is top notch. We decided to visit Ishigaki for our honeymoon, and the highlights included the infinity private pool, the incredibly sweet and attentive staff, and the chef’s nightly dinners. The food was amazing, the staff worked so incredibly hard every day and night to make sure we were taken care of, and the property is even more beautiful than the pictures. I could not recommend this place more, thank you so much!

We decided to spend our anniversary at Jusandi on Ishigaki and it did not disappoint. The staff were kind and accommodating. They even helped us to get last minute reservations at the best restaurant on the island which was amazing! We had the Gashimune villa that has a private beach in addition to the private pool. The included breakfasts both western and Japanese were excellent and filling. You could almost save half for lunch or a light afternoon snack. We chose to dine out during our stay so I can't speak to the dinner options; but, I would imagine it's quite nice as well. The WiFi is fast enough to stream movies and there is no TV. However, they do provide an iPad and portable speaker. I highly recommend you enjoy this place as a private retreat from the real world. Enjoy!

We were looking for somewhere to complement our stay on the main islands of Japan on our second trip there. We found Jusandi via various bits of research and had at the time to try and interpret a website entirely in Japanese (they now have an English language site).||||The place is very small and feels very remote, with only four Villas and a small main building nearby. The room we stayed in (Gashihume) was a great size, well appointed and the soft drinks in the mini bar were included in the price. The private pool whilst small was large enough to do a few strokes in. The food was superb and cooked by a cordon bleu trained Ishigaki chef who used to be at the Intercontinental on the same island. The style is French but with great use of local ingredients, the goat cutlets being a highlight. Staff are very attentive and friendly and would do whatever was needed to make your stay more comfortable. The trail down to the beach is nice as you feel like you are in the midst of a jungle in the middle of nowhere. There are interesting inter-tidal pools and fish for those of us with an interest in such things.||||In terms of things to do on the island I would suggest hiring a car when you arrive as it is fairly small and there is very little traffic and sadly the bus service, which we used a couple of times, is very infrequent. There are a number of small places to go on various island circuits and you could have a great leisurely time going round. We enjoyed the glass bottomed boat coral tour at Kabira which was excellent, we saw a great variety of things with a large sea turtle being a highlight.

We had the most amazing time at Jusandi! Private villa with pool, surrounded by jungle forest and a path through jungle to private terrace for viewing the ocean and sunset. Another path leads to a small beach and Blue Cave with the most incredible reef snorkeling I’ve experienced!||Wonderful, friendly staff and the most amazing food and wine in the intimate restaurant. Turn off the pool lights and see amazing star filled sky and moonlit clouds.||Truly an unforgettable treat.

February is probably not the best time to visit ishigaki as the weather is hit and miss, but anytime is probably a good time to stay at jusandi. Its a tiny place with only five bungalows but has a great feel. The bungalows are of a very nice design with a large bath with room for two and in our unit anyway a view of the ocean from the bath. There are a couple of cute little beaches that are reached by small jungle trails from the hotel. The large one has an awesome blue cave attached to the beach with must make a great place to swim in warmer weather. My wife loves to collect shells on the beach and we found a ton..the best thing about the jusandi has to be the dinners. Its expensive, but not to be missed. Something like an eight course Italian dinner with each dish a treasure. Honestly if you pass on dinner here to get some island noodles or yakiniku you are making a big mistake...

My wife and I checked in for one night on our round-trip on the island. We were immediately greeted by the single staff who was in the hotel. A very nice and polite young man. He was available for everything we required doing the whole stay. ||||Even when we met him in the airport a few day later, he remembered us and very polity contacted us to wish us a nice trip back.||||We were the only guests at the hotel, which made it even more luxurious. We had our own private beach, cave for snorkeling, chef and restaurant. absolutely perfect. I would think that even there are other guests the feeling would be almost the same. the few(maybe 5) villas are very private and surrounded by jungle.||||The food was very very good.||||Everything about this place is perfect. Even you think it is expensive, it is worth every single Yen. An once in a lifetime experience.

When booking Jusandi, our objective was to get away from the mainland's (Honshu) Winter weather, enjoy good food, have some peace and quiet and enjoy the two islands of Ishigaki and Iriomote. Jusandi turned out to be a terrific launchpad for everything we wanted to during our time there.||||It's an absolutely gorgeous property in a remote part of Ishigaki (the island itself is relatively sparsely populated, except for the main town and ferry terminal area.) It's about a 25 minute drive to the airport and 35 minutes from the main Port and Ferry terminal, so it's sufficiently convenient while at the same time feeling like a world away. The property beautifully blends in with the pretty natural environment. There are mountains in the backdrop, dense jungle all around, and yet the immediate property grounds are neatly manicured. The structures (both inside and out) are all white in a Mediterranean sort of way - it's somewhat reminiscent of Santorini in that regard. The main building houses the restaurant as well as a small library and lounge, while the five villas are sufficiently spread out to ensure privacy with zero noise pollution from other guests. Our Villa was called "Maani," and was a slightly underwhelming 60㎡ in size. Given that Jusandi is a relatively new property with only five Villas, and the property grounds are massive, I would've liked to have seen more generous space in each of the Villas (save for the family Villa, which is 100㎡.) We visited in December, and were there during a minor cold spell by Ishigaki standards (think mid-60s Fahrenheit, upper teens Celsius-wise), so lounging around the private outdoor pool wasn't really an option. If you restrict yourself to staying indoors like we did, the Villa does not provide an abundance of space to spread out. The bedroom and living room were in one combined open area, with the bathroom and shower/tub at the far end of the long hallway (near the front entrance of the villa.) The room was modern, stylish and elegantly simple - appropriate for a small luxury villa resort.||||Service is outstanding; Jusandi does not employ a large number of staff given that it only has 5 rooms - consequently, each employee is asked to wear multiple hats and operate with a jack-of-all-trades mentality. For instance, we noticed that the person who checked us in was also later seen delivering breakfast to the Villas (only dinner is served in the main restaurant), while he later was cleaning the pool and mowing the lawn. Everyone but the chef seemed to deal with all aspects of the hotel operation, which I later learned as a blessing for the employees - it helped break up whatever monotony that such a job otherwise would entail. In any case, everyone seemed to be treated very well, and appeared to be happy working there. They were professional, courteous and eager to please. Whenever we asked for something (such as the request to have a humidifier delivered to our room), it was dealt with in record time.||||The real star of Jusandi, however, is the food - Chef Takumi Hirose is incredibly accomplished in Italian-Japanese fusion cuisine, and served up unique and memorable dishes. Furthermore, it's an open kitchen so we were able to enjoy his artistry with our own eyes. Some of the dishes were Italian-inspired for sure, but most of the recipes as well as the execution of each dish were uniquely Chef Hirose's. For instance, the baked Ise Lobster's Oyster Sauce was more reminiscent of Chinese-style flavoring. Also, a great number of the various sauces were based on Dashi, which Chef Hirose claimed was the key to the Umami-ness of the food. He was right. Dishes which we consider typically bland and somewhat devoid of Umami (i.e. cream sauce or tomato sauce) literally burst with flavor at Jusandi, thanks to the liberal helping of Dashi. Of particular note was a cold pasta (that's right, pasta served cold, and we're not talking pasta salad, either): Capellini with Tomato Sauce, served with Caviar on top... it was absolutely divine. It was light and healthy, but still full of rich and complex flavors. According to Chef Hirose, Dashi was the key, and we definitely concur.||||Breakfast was served in our Villa, and rotated between Western and Japanese offerings each day. Both were equally delicious, with particular emphasis on the fresh local vegetables that are in abundance in Ishigaki. It definitely picked us up at the start of each day.||||Jusandi is a special place that we will fondly remember. Only its slightly small villa size and some minor compromises in the room layout keep it from being a true world-beating small luxury resort. Still, I highly recommended it.