Ascott Marunouchi Tokyo

Tokyo doesn’t really have a single central downtown district, but if you’re in the business of banking and finance, you’ll find you’re spending an awful lot of time in Marunouchi. (And with easy access to the Imperial Palace and to Ginza, it’s not a bad spot for sightseers or shoppers, either.) Some of the world’s most impressive high-end hotels are located here — and they’re joined by Ascott Marunouchi Tokyo, whose serviced apartments give the luxury chains a run for their money.

They’re more sedate, more sparsely decorated, as befits an apartment you might spend weeks in, rather than a few nights. And if they’re perhaps less lavish in an immediately dazzling way, they’re arguably more luxurious when you take into account the residential-style comforts; studio suites come with kitchenettes and cozy two-person dining tables, while the one-bedrooms add proper living rooms, and as you go up the range you come into full kitchens, dining rooms that are spacious enough for a dinner party, and eventually the three-bedroom Marunouchi Suite.

There’s a gym, a lounge, a rooftop terrace, and even a swimming pool — but what there isn’t, strictly speaking, is the sort of bustling bar or restaurant that’s so often the interface between a luxury hotel and a city. The Ascott simply isn’t that sort of place — here privacy is paramount. But that hardly means you’ll go hungry; modern Tokyo, and Marunouchi in particular, is avidly mixed-use, and every building, this one included, contains multitudes, including shops and restaurants — and of course the greater neighborhood’s got everything you could possibly need, and then some.