Tokyo is no easy city for Westerners. Although its hotel landscape is
dotted in glittery names like Mandarin Oriental, Peninsula, Four
Seasons, Park Hyatt, and even Aman - issues from service to style can
leave many guests feeling lost in translation. Recently, we took a long
weekend to explore Japan's capital, and host of the upcoming 2020 Summer
Olympics, in hopes of finding Tokyo's top hotels. To understand modern
Tokyo, we sought out the Okura Hotel
-one of the city's first luxury properties. With its mid-century lobby
and bustling curbside valet service, once inside we were surprised to
find teatime far more popular than the hotel bar on a Saturday evening.
We were also surprised to find not a single update undertaken since the
once-posh hotel first opened.
At the Peninsula,
closer to retail-minded Ginza, a dated mid-rise tower is home to a
cavernous lobby that doubles as a casual restaurant infused with a mix
of pan-flute chanteuses playing versions of Like a Virgin and
ladies-who-lunch enjoying towers of sweet creations from the impeccable
Peninsula Bakery. While its spa and gym could use improvements and lack
of proper bar fully disappoints, amenities like local chauffeur service
ala Rolls Royce and large guest rooms with ample closet and bathroom
space impressed. Long the top hotel in town, last year's opening of
nearby Aman Tokyo displaced the Peninsula. Aman Tokyo
wows with a 33rd floor lobby cast in double-height windows and walls of
dark basalt stone that rise into a Japanese paper ceiling designed by
Kerry Hill Architects to resemble an actual lantern. A sprawling lobby
reflection pool is surrounded by separate lounge and cigar bars as well
as a formal guests-only restaurant. Guest rooms are the best in Tokyo,
and perhaps any Asian city, with floor-to-ceiling windows and
low-profile beds next to long galley-style spa bathrooms concealed
behind Japanese paper doors.
Mandarin Oriental Tokyo
lures brand loyalists to a somewhat bland location in Chuo-ku. Its
lobby, however, is surrounded by one of the best views in the city and
also home to Sushi Sora - a 2-star Michelin powerhouse. Interiors and
décor, however, appear rather worn and very much in need of updating.
Better, quite surprisingly, is Grand Hyatt Roppongi Hills
with its incredible location above one of the city's top shopping
centers that’s walking distance to trendy Aoyama and Omotesando. Rooms
are adequately luxurious with access to one of the top hotel gyms in
town complete with pool and Japanese baths. And for anyone that
remembers the 2003 film Lost in Translation, a visit to Park Hyatt
in Shinjuku is worthy of a night if perhaps not a stay. Rooms, however,
are best for the views and not for the drab décor that seems plucked
from the Hyatt corporate catalog. Its New York Bar is one of the best
lounges in Tokyo, as Japanese rock bands play to chain-smoking expats
with one of the best mixology programs in town.
