Ryokan Otozure

WOW! This was the first Ryokan Onsen that I stayed in and I was blown away by the lodging, the amazing staff, and the food. I say lodging because my ryokan has as much square footage as my home—a balcony, an outdoor onsen, shower and changing area, two separate toilet rooms, an open configurable area with kitchen, dining area, living room area, and sleeping area. They provided a yukata and a cloth purse that I wore for meals in the restaurant, and pajamas for relaxing in the accommodations. ||Every corner of the room and the ryokan was thoughtfully decorated—flower arrangements, ceramics, pictures, and so on. Happy hour each evening was a relaxing affair in the low-key bar area. Our tuxedo-clad host was efficient and friendly. ||Guests have a choice of "American" or Japanese breakfast. I tried each. "American" breakfast is much different from what we'd have in the USA, but you won't get the tasty Umeboshi plum or Japanese pickles provided with the Japanese breakfast. I found that both choices were far too much for me. On two days I opted instead to get a pastry from the bake shop and eat in my room. ||The kaiseki was fabulous. I was with a group (10 total) so we dined in our own room each night. Each night had a different menu. If you want to get an idea of what the experience was like, see the photos I posted for each of the kaiseki courses we had on the first night. Thanks to Head Chef Junichi Takeda for the wonderful meals and to Otani-san for being such a gracious and wonderful host.

If I could give this place 6 stars I would. We booked a Type A room which included dinner in both the Teppanyaki restaurant and the Kaseike restaurant. Both were Michelin star quality, we had breakfast which was just as outstanding. Our room, 201, with its own hot tub was a beautiful respite from exploring the surrounds. There is a shrine about a ten minute walk from town that is out of this world.|Then There is the staff which were all excellent. But the standouts were, Mikki and Wanami who looked after us beautifully.|Wearing Kimonos in the ryokan was fun, there are plenty of restaurant choices outside the hotel too but we never contemplated that as an option. This ryokan is outstanding and I will be referring all of my friends to visit here.

Luxury Ryokan level of service from check in to check out (although the driver did mix up our stay with another pair). Compared with other traditional Japanese one, this one is relatively modern. We were torn between more modern one like the Kai series, but I prefer something less commercial and more of the signature Japanese hospitality and values. Kaiseki is excellent. Free bar in the afternoon was good as well Didn't see there was a large dvd library until we checked out. The hot spring town was cute and small with lots of foot baths along the stream/river. Only issue is that this is quite far away from everything so a bit of a trek for us to get here.

We reached Nagato-Yumoto via a lovely ride north on the JR Mine Line through the quiet Otozure River Valley on a one car, conductor-less train, and whisked from the station to the inn. We were welcomed with tea and sweet in a lovely tea rooms area, and then shown to our rooms. Our room had a private bath on the balcony and a really nice loft area with a media center. The property has a hotel structure and amenities (gym etc.) and the feel of a family-run inn. It is attached to a larger hotel, Otani-Sanso, and we went for delicious teppanyaki at the hotel one of our nights. We enjoyed kaiseki on the other night and our waitress could not have been more kind and lovely. Overall, the service was absolutely top-notch.The communal baths are spectacular, varied and peaceful, and one can also visit the baths in the main hotel. One small note is that we had poor cell reception and a laptop (MacBook Air) with no Ethernet port, so we were out of luck on internet as there is no WiFi in the rooms. Macbook Air (or similar) users should bring a USB-ethernet adapter. There is a PC in a small room off the lobby, but the internet was very slow. It was probably a blessing -- at a beautiful place like this the point is to just relax in the care of your wonderful hosts.

We visited this place only 1day, but it was amazing experience. The access to this ryokan was a little complicated, and you may find it difficult looking for interesting sightseeing place, however, the ryokan itself is so relaxing. Each room is duplex style and you can have your own theatre, roten bath, and nice comfortable bed. The main bath has ganbanyoku and everything's are well maintained and beautiful. The food is also excellent quality. The guest can enjoy free flow sparkling wine at the bar as well. You can relax and feel luxury time to the full. The only negative point was they couldn't take credit card issued in abroad, so it us best to bring some cash to settle the payment.

This ryokan is attached to its bigger sister roykan. We always enjoy going to ryokan of this kind as you can enjoy the facilities in the bigger one (particularly the larger onsen), while having a more luxurious and private experience in the boutique side of the ryokan.||||We booked the maisonette style room. The room was on the small size, but it was suffice. We had a hard time deciding whether to have French or Teppanyaki dinner; but at the end, we opted for Teppanyaki. The food was excellent and I especially enjoyed the abalone, which was cooked to perfection! We chose the western style breakfast and it was lovely.||||In summary, service was excellent and I love the zen decor of the ryokan. Food was delicious. Too bad we didn't stay for another night to try the French dinner.

Everything about this oozes tasteful indulgence with a lovely fusion of eastern and western influences. Service is impeccable as well. We were greeted and treated to delicious matcha tea.||The decor is beautiful with tatami and wood trimmings and almost every place you sit in in the lobby/ reception/ lounge area is zen like.||There's a lovely area where tea/ coffee are provided free.||||The room was huge with a Japanese seating area , western seating area and a bar area. The massage chair and leg massager were an awesome touch. These usually are located in the common areas so having one exclusively in the room was a treat.||There were two toilets which were lovely. Seats were heated , toilet seats opened and closed on||their own !||||We also had our own onsen which was magical . Music could be piped out and that made the soaking in the onsen all the more pleasurable. We ended up soaking more in our private bath than in the public baths. The later is also beautiful and should be experienced at least once in your stay.||||Staff are friendly and are very eager to practice their English conversational skills. Mr Otozure , the boss himself came to talk to us as well.||||The Tempanyaki and French restaurants are located in the main hotel and this is assessable via a connecting walkway. Patrons of the ryokan can enter the main hotel but those guests are not able to gain entry into ours with their hotel card.||||I would advise making your dinner bookings way in advance as the restaurants fill up quite quickly due to the limited number of seats . The food was outstanding.||||For after dinner music , the main hotel lobby lounge has a band playing a variety of songs in quite a number of languages .||||Our holiday ended on a high and we look forward to revisiting again .

While there are very nice places to stay when venturing South (beyond Hiroshima), there is a comparative dearth of top luxury ryokans. Bettei Otozure is one of the exceptions. While not quite up to the standards of the best of the best (i.e., Gora Kadan, Asaba, Takefue), it's not priced to the stratosphere like those places, either.||||As others have mentioned, Bettei Otozure was formed as a result of Otani Sanso's many years of (property and room) expansion, resulting in a need for a smaller, more intimate property for the discerning clientele seeking a more private experience. Otozure has 18 rooms, meaning it's dwarfed by its sister property. But fear not - there are corridors connecting the two ryokans, but only guests staying at Otozure are allowed into Otozure itself, meaning you'll get the best of both worlds if you stay there.||||We stayed 3 nights in an "A Type" Suite, which one of the highest category rooms at Otozure. It's 82m² in size, which is good but not great, but it's partially made up for by virtue of its 32m² balcony. The Suite is of a semi open plan variety - the bedroom is in its own area, but there isn't a wall/door that separates it from the living room... not good if one person is trying to take a nap while the other attempts to get some work done. Otherwise, it's all good. The furnishings are contemporary Japanese - it's not a traditionally decorated ryokan, which is a plus or minus, depending on your tastes. The A Type Suite also had dual vanity/sinks, as well as an open-air Onsen hot springs bath, which we find a prerequisite for a ryokan (or at least a higher category room at one) to be considered a luxurious one.||||Food is very high quality, and leans heavily towards seafood, given that Otozure is in close proximity to the Sea of Japan, where there is an abundance of very nice fish, including Fugu (blowfish), Tilefish, Sea Urchin, Conger Eel and Stonefish - many of them real delicacies. They are all wonderfully prepared, flavored and garnished in various and unique ways, and are beautifully presented. If there's a slight knock on the Otozure cuisine, in comparison to other ryokans the overall quantity of the food is less - in many cases, we had to make calculated decisions on what to leave on the plate for fear of getting too full to continue eating. Not at Otozure. If you have a hearty appetite, you might potentially feel a tad unfulfilled. Also, the presentation is not as elaborate at Otozure. For instance, for the Hassun/Sakizuke (i.e. appetizer) courses, most ryokans would serve up a variety of small dishes, but in Otozure it's one dish. Nitpicky, perhaps, but I can't help but think that this is one area where they do cut corners. Similarly, desserts are far less elaborate. For two of our three Kaiseki meals (we went all Kaiseki), we got fruit, and only fruit. Now, I love high quality fruit as much as the next person, but that's not exactly something I necessarily visit ryokans for. Give me something unique. And if it's fruit, serve it in a way where it's not JUST fruit. Case in point... at another ryokan, they had seasonal melon - but, along with the melon, they had a small cup of melon mousse as well as melon sherbet. To me, it was far more satisfying to know that they went all out in each and every course, from start to finish.||||One other gripe - we are sticklers for having meals served in the actual room we're staying in, especially if we booked a nice and spacious one (which we almost always do, with the exception being if they've already been booked.) When we chose our room and later called them directly to inquire about whether meals are (or can be) served in the room, they said "no, it's in the restaurant." Okay, fine. Later, we learned that there are two rooms where in-room dining is possible (#204, a Type B room, as well as #206, a Type C room.) You know, I sort of wished they would have told us that when we stated our preference, even if it meant that we'd have to stay in a different room category than the one we selected. By the way, don't ask me why it's those two rooms. They made an excuse about our room being too far away, except that both 204 and 206 were no more than about 50 feet away from our room, and located on the same floor!||||All in all, we had a great time at Otozure, and it's a good base from which to explore the surrounding areas. A few adjustments to their approach would easily result in a 5-star rating in my book. But even as things stand, we would not hesitate to recommend Otozure.||||P.S. - if you have a rental car, there are some great places to see (depending on the time of year and the weather), especially if you're a connoiseur of Japan. This includes Hagi town (very historic, if you're into Japanese history), Motonosumi Inari Shrine, Akiyoshidai and Akiyoshido Cave, Beppu Benten Ike Pond, Tsunoshima Bridge, and the incredible 5-Storied Pagoda at Ruriko-ji Temple near Yamaguchi City (as well as Jyoei-ji Temple and the adjacent Sesshutei Garden.) You can easily combine Otozure with a visit to Hiroshima and Miyajima, with a stop at Iwakuni Castle and Kintai-kyo Bridge along the way - the latter is a must-see.