Banyan Tree Higashiyama Kyoto – Kengo Kuma’s new onsen hotel with a Noh stage you didn’t know you needed

Kyoto has no shortage of luxury hotels. It has the Park Hyatt, the Four Seasons, the Ritz-Carlton, the Aman. So when a new five-star property opens and its headline features are “designed by Kengo Kuma,” “the only hotel in Kyoto with a Noh stage,” and “natural hot spring onsen in your room,” it’s worth paying attention. Banyan Tree Higashiyama Kyoto opened August 20, 2024 — Banyan Tree’s first property in Japan — and it’s 52 rooms on a hill in the Higashiyama mountains, five minutes’ walk from Kiyomizu-dera, with views across the city below. The room in this vlog is the ONSEN Retreat Twin at 244,575 JPY / $1,630 USD per night.

The honest questions: Does the Kengo Kuma design actually deliver on its premise? Is the in-room onsen genuinely hot spring water? How does the kaiseki dinner at Ryozen land? And is this the best new luxury option in Kyoto right now? Let’s get into it.

The backstory – what was here before and why it matters

The site where Banyan Tree Higashiyama stands was previously occupied by Hotel Ryozen, a property that operated here for over 60 years before closing in 2019. The stone walls from the original hotel still surround the site — deliberately preserved through the new construction as a physical layer of continuity with the location’s history. When you arrive and walk past those stone walls, you’re walking past something older than the building you’re checking into.

The site itself carries deeper historical weight than just the hotel that preceded it. The Ryozen area of Higashiyama has served for centuries as a boundary zone between the city of Kyoto and the mountains — with Otani Sobyo Mausoleum to the north and the ancient burial ground at Toribeno to the south. In Japanese cultural geography this is liminal territory, a transition point between the world of the living and whatever lies beyond. The name “Ryozen” — which the hotel’s restaurant takes as its own — carries this meaning embedded within it.

This context is not incidental to the hotel’s design philosophy. Kengo Kuma explicitly used it as the conceptual foundation: the area’s association with Noh theatre (which deals almost entirely with ghosts, gods, and spirits navigating between worlds) shaped the decision to place a Noh stage at the heart of the property. The hotel’s own description of its design concept is yūgen — a Japanese aesthetic term describing a profound, mysterious sense of beauty, specifically the kind that hints at what lies beneath the surface of things. That’s either the most interesting luxury hotel concept brief you’ve heard or marketing copy that got ahead of itself. Having seen the vlog footage, it appears to be the former.

The architect and the design

Kengo Kuma & Associates designed the hotel’s architecture and the Noh stage. Kuma is one of the most significant Japanese architects working today — his portfolio includes the Japan National Stadium for the Tokyo Olympics, the V&A Dundee in Scotland, and dozens of projects globally that share a consistent philosophy: buildings that emerge from their sites rather than being imposed on them, with natural materials doing the heavy lifting rather than dramatic formal gestures.

The Banyan Tree Higashiyama reflects this approach visibly. The façade is Cypress wood and natural materials arranged in geometric lattice patterns — a Kuma signature that creates a permeable boundary between inside and outside rather than a hard wall. The hotel sits on a sloped site with 12 metres of height difference between its lowest and highest point, and Kuma’s solution is a pair of mid-rise concrete volumes framing stepped gardens rather than fighting the topography. The hotel grows up the hillside with it.

Interior design was handled by DWP International, with guest room design by hashimoto yukio design studio. The interiors translate Kuma’s material vocabulary inward: the same wood tones, natural textures, and restrained palette run through the lobby, the restaurant, and the guest rooms. The handmade bamboo fence screens between restaurant tables are by Takenosuke, a renowned Fukui-based bamboo fence maker. The lighting design responds to the yūgen concept — spaces feel considered rather than lit.

A technical note: the main four-storey building houses the bedrooms and all common areas (lobby, restaurant, bar, onsen baths), while a separate annexe structure sits adjacent. Some guest room categories are in the annexe rather than the main building — guest feedback has noted this distinction matters for the overall sense of integration with the property, so when booking, confirm whether your room type is in the main building or the annexe.

The room – ONSEN Retreat Twin

The room tour runs from 04:35 to 16:01 — over 11 minutes — and there’s enough material to justify it. The vlog walks through every detail: the layout, the onsen bath, the views, the amenities, and the Wi-Fi speed test at 16:01 which tells you the connectivity is solid for a hilltop location in Kyoto.

The room categories at Banyan Tree Higashiyama fall into two main groups: Serenity rooms (standard) and Onsen Retreat rooms. The critical difference is the bathtub: Onsen Retreat rooms have a private onsen bath fed by the hotel’s natural hot spring source. Serenity rooms have a standard deep soaking tub. This matters significantly to how you experience the hotel, and the price difference reflects it.

The ONSEN Retreat Twin specifically — the vlog’s room — includes:

• 🛁 Private in-room onsen bath fed by the natural Higashiyama hot spring. This is the headline feature and it’s real — the hotel sits on a genuine hot spring source, rare in central Kyoto. The onsen bath overlooks either the small garden or the bamboo garden and Noh Stage depending on your specific room position
• 🪟 Panoramic city views — the elevated hillside position means rooms look out over Kyoto’s low-rise cityscape. Dawn from this vantage point is specifically worth experiencing
• 🧘 Japanese aesthetic details throughout — tatami-influenced elements, the Kuma material palette carried into the guest space, the kind of considered room design that doesn’t announce itself loudly but accumulates into something genuinely calm
• 🛍️ Onsen basket, relaxation wear, and geta sandals provided — the ryokan-adjacent touches that complete the onsen hotel experience and mean you’re not wandering to the public baths in your regular clothes
• 📺 Flat-screen TV, minibar, in-room safe — the standard luxury provision, all present

One honest note from guest feedback worth flagging: at least one documented complaint noted the in-room onsen bath was filled with regular hot water rather than actual hot spring water during that particular stay. This seems to be an inconsistency rather than a policy — the hotel absolutely has a natural hot spring source and the Onsen Retreat rooms are designed to use it — but it’s worth confirming with the hotel at check-in that your bath will be filled with the actual onsen water. It’s the whole premise of the category.

The best room in the hotel, per multiple sources: the Banyan Onsen Retreat King at 74 sqm, which has the private onsen bath positioned to overlook the Noh stage and bamboo garden simultaneously. There are only eight rooms in the hotel with private onsen baths total. They book up.

The Noh stage and bamboo forest

The vlog reaches this at 23:51 and it’s the architectural and conceptual heart of the property. The Noh stage sits in the hotel’s stepped gardens, accessible from the second floor via the Ryozen restaurant terrace. Three guest rooms directly overlook it — the ones worth specifically requesting if you want the stage as your primary view.

Kuma’s design for the stage is deliberately skeletal: aromatic cypress wood rafters create the structural outline of a traditional Noh theatre without enclosing it completely. The stage is open to the sky and the surrounding bamboo forest. The bamboo grove behind the stage was planted to extend the forest line and blur the boundary between the hotel’s cultivated garden and the natural hillside. The design intent — a stage that “embodies both presence and ephemerality, blending seamlessly with the natural surroundings” — is visible rather than just described in press materials.

Noh is one of the oldest performance traditions in the world, dating from the 14th century, designated as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2008. Its themes deal almost entirely with the supernatural — ghosts, gods, spirits navigating the boundary between worlds. Placing a Noh stage in the Ryozen district, which has served as Kyoto’s literal boundary between the city and the afterlife territory of its burial grounds for centuries, is a curatorial decision of real depth. The Noh stage at Banyan Tree hosts actual Nohgaku performances, contemporary art events, and musical events throughout the year.

The bamboo forest immediately surrounding the stage is worth slow exploration even if no performance is scheduled. The vlog footage here is some of the strongest visual material in the entire hour.

Afternoon tea, dinner and breakfast at Ryozen

☕ Afternoon tea at Ryozen

The afternoon tea service from 17:40 in the vlog is how Banyan Tree Higashiyama introduces guests to the Ryozen restaurant space before the evening kaiseki. The tearoom has a direct view of the Noh stage and bamboo garden through large windows — the afternoon light through cypress and bamboo is the kind of thing the hotel clearly engineered this view for. The tea service reflects the hotel’s commitment to local sourcing: Kyoto tea culture is one of the city’s defining characteristics and the hotel’s approach to afternoon tea sits within that tradition rather than importing a generic hotel afternoon tea format.

🍽️ Dinner at Ryozen – kaiseki

The dinner coverage runs from 36:00 and this is the most substantial food content in the vlog. Ryozen restaurant serves a kappo-style kaiseki dinner — a multi-course format built around the concept of seasonal ingredients and the highest expression of Japanese culinary technique applied to whatever Kyoto’s markets are providing that week.

The kitchen uses Kyoto vegetables (kyo-yasai — the city has a distinct vegetable culture dating back centuries) alongside a signature dashi broth made from five-year-aged Rishiri kelp from Hokkaido. That detail — aged five years before being used as a broth base — is the kind of sourcing specification that signals how seriously the kitchen takes its material. The dinner is intimate by design: Ryozen seats a small number of covers, and the space itself features those handmade Takenosuke bamboo screens between tables that give each dining party a degree of visual privacy without fully enclosing them.

Dinner is the meal that earns the room rate here. Kyoto kaiseki is one of the pinnacles of Japanese cuisine and having it served inside a Kengo Kuma-designed room overlooking a Noh stage and bamboo forest is a combination that’s difficult to replicate anywhere else in the city regardless of budget.

🍳 Breakfast at Ryozen

Breakfast from 46:46 offers both Japanese and Western options from the same space. The Japanese breakfast is the natural choice — rice, miso, small dishes of fish and pickles, tofu, the format that Japanese culture has refined over centuries. The Western option (eggs, bacon, sausage, pastries) exists for guests who genuinely can’t do a Japanese breakfast, and by multiple accounts it’s well-executed. Breakfast is eaten with the same view of the Noh stage that defines every meal at Ryozen — garden, stage, bamboo above the roofline. It’s not a bad way to start a day in Kyoto.

🍶 Bar Ryozen

One floor below the restaurant, the sake bar has 20 seats, over 30 varieties of sake from across Japan including rare finds, and a cocktail list built around Kyoto ingredients. The Ryozen Green Tea Gin and Tonic and Mirin Breeze are the signature house cocktails. For sake specifically — particularly if you want to try serious Kyoto-region sake from producers most outside visitors never encounter — this bar is worth an evening even if you’re staying elsewhere in the city.

The public onsen and spa

The public onsen baths at 40:52 are the gender-split communal hot spring facility on the basement level — separate from the in-room onsen baths in the Onsen Retreat rooms. The public baths use the same natural hot spring source. For guests in Serenity rooms without a private onsen, the public bath is the primary onsen experience. For guests in Onsen Retreat rooms, the public bath is the alternative for when you want the communal soak experience rather than the private room version.

The Banyan Tree Spa offers holistic treatments — the Banyan Tree spa brand has a well-established reputation across its Asian properties for merging traditional healing practices with contemporary wellness. At Higashiyama, the treatments integrate both Japanese healing traditions and Banyan Tree’s signature techniques. The spa is on the basement level and shares the same material palette as the hotel overall: calming, subterranean, quiet. Aromatherapy, body scrubs, wraps, and Thai massage are all offered daily alongside onsen, sauna, and steam room access.

The gym is 24 hours, noted as smaller in scale but high quality in equipment. Given that you’re a 30-minute walk from Kiyomizu-dera and Kodai-ji temple through the Higashiyama stone-paved lanes, the most natural exercise option at this hotel is just walking the neighbourhood — which is one of the more pleasant urban walks in Japan.

The walk to Kiyomizu-dera

The vlog covers this walk from 29:36 to 35:25 and it’s one of the clearest illustrations of why the Higashiyama location matters. Kiyomizu-dera Temple — a UNESCO World Heritage Site, one of Kyoto’s most significant and visually dramatic temples, famous for its wooden stage projecting out from the hillside — is approximately 10 minutes’ walk from the hotel’s front entrance through the traditional stone-paved Higashiyama lanes. Kodai-ji temple and Yasaka Shrine are similarly close.

This is a genuinely unusual position for a luxury hotel in Kyoto. Most of the city’s five-star properties are in central locations (Karasuma-Oike, the Kawaramachi area) that require a 20-30 minute taxi to reach these temples. Banyan Tree puts you inside the historic neighbourhood that contains them. In the early morning before the tour groups arrive — and the early morning quiet on the Higashiyama stone lanes is a specific and remarkable thing — you’re walking through one of the best-preserved historic urban environments in Japan with essentially no one else around. The hotel’s elevated position means the return walk is uphill, which is a genuine consideration for anyone with mobility limitations.

The vlog’s walk footage shows the Higashiyama lanes in their functional state — local shops, small temples and shrines punctuating the route, the stone paving, the old machiya townhouse architecture. It’s the neighbourhood context that many Kyoto visitors miss entirely because they visit by bus or taxi. Having it be a morning walk from your hotel is a legitimate reason to choose this property over alternatives in more central locations.

Pricing and the loyalty angle

The ONSEN Retreat Twin at 244,575 JPY / $1,630 USD per night including tax is the room covered in this vlog. Here’s the broader context:

• 💰 Serenity rooms (without private onsen) start at approximately $800-900 USD per night — significantly lower than the Onsen Retreat tier and the entry point if you’re more interested in the design and location than specifically the private onsen
• 💰 Banyan Onsen Retreat King (74 sqm, the best room) runs higher than the Twin covered in this vlog
• 💰 Cherry blossom season (late March-early April) and autumn foliage season (November) are the most expensive periods in Kyoto by a significant margin. Winter (December-February) and late summer (August-September) offer more accessible rates and Kyoto outside of leaf-watching season has its own quieter character that many prefer

The loyalty programme angle: Banyan Tree is part of World of Hyatt as a partner brand — you can earn and redeem Hyatt points at Banyan Tree properties. This is a meaningful detail. Hyatt’s partnership with Banyan Tree means that Hyatt Globalist status applies here, and Hyatt points from Chase Ultimate Rewards (which transfer to Hyatt at 1:1) can be used toward stays. For serious Hyatt points collectors, Banyan Tree Higashiyama is a World of Hyatt Category 7 property — check current Hyatt point values and whether a points stay makes sense relative to the cash rate for your specific dates.

Booking direct on Banyan Tree’s website may include additional benefits beyond what third-party booking sites offer. The hotel opened August 2024 so the loyalty programme integration is still relatively early in its maturity — worth checking current terms directly.

Best time to visit Kyoto: Spring cherry blossom (late March to mid-April) is iconic and expensive. Autumn foliage (mid-November) is similarly spectacular and similarly priced. The quieter shoulder periods — late May, September, early December — let you experience Higashiyama’s stone lanes and temple gardens with dramatically fewer people. Winter Kyoto has its own beauty, particularly after rare snowfall when the temples are dusted white. If you want Kiyomizu-dera to yourself before 7am, any season in weekday morning hours will work from this hotel.

Frequently asked questions

📹 Video by ST Travel