On July 4, 2024, the MICHELIN Guide revealed the brand new One, Two, and Three Key distinctions for the most outstanding hotels in Japan.
This announcement comes four years into a comprehensive refresh of our hotel selection. The MICHELIN Guide now includes over 6,000 hotels across the world, and not a single one is simply a room for the night. These are places that significantly add to your experience as a traveler, each vetted and judged excellent in five categories: architecture and interior design, quality and consistency of service, overall personality and character, value for the price, and a significant contribution to the guest experience in a particular setting.
Which brings us back to the Keys. The culmination of countless hours of evaluation by our team of experts, the Key hotels below represent the highlights of our broader selection. Like the MICHELIN Stars for restaurants, the MICHELIN Keys are our most outstanding hotels.
In total, the 2024 MICHELIN Guide hotel selection in Japan includes 6 Three Key hotels, 17 Two Key hotels, and 85 One Key hotels. Want to know more about the MICHELIN Key? Here’s everything you need to know. Or, head below to look at all the Keys.
How To Look Through the List
Jump straight to the list or take a deeper dive into select Key hotels.
On this page, you’ll find every single one of our new Key distinctions, sorted by number of Keys and location in Japan. Click on any hotel to go straight to the hotel page to learn more about the nuts and bolts of each property. Alternatively, you can read any number of in-depth pieces about the aspects of the special craft that make up a Key hotel over on our magazine. While our anonymous selection team spends every day scouring the earth to vet favorite hotels and unearth hidden gems, our editorial team delves into the hotel craft by speaking directly to hoteliers.
Take a peek at a Two Key ryokan that seeks to embody the lost charm of the past.
Or, look inside a One Key ryokan that embraces modernity and modern art.
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Highlights of the Japan 2024 Key Hotel List
Tokyo: Skyscrapers and Design Gems
Out of 6 Three Key hotels in Japan, half make their home in towers in Tokyo. At Bvlgari Hotel Tokyo, Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo at Otemachi, and the Palace Hotel Tokyo, expect the lavish spas, restaurants, and faultless service that have long made Tokyo among the luxury-hotel capitals of the world. Other Key hotels that stand tall over the megapolis: Andaz Tokyo, Aman Tokyo, and Bellustar Tokyo, A Pan Pacific Hotel.
But the city is home too to less intimidating masterpieces. Look to the contemporary Swedish design of K5 for perhaps the quintessential example of boutique personality in the capital, or to TRUNK (HOTEL) YOYOGI PARK for a small, Japanese and Danish-inspired accommodation wonderfully placed on the edge of an urban forest.
Worth a mention: Gora Kadan, a Three Key Hotel just outside Tokyo set in a verdant national park.
See More: The Architecture and Interior Design of Tokyo's Three Key Hotels
Two Types of Ryokan: Deeply Traditional and Imaginatively Reinvented
We’re thrilled to celebrate many ryokan hotels in our inaugural list of Keys in Japan. Among the oldest forms of hospitality in history, the ryokan has no official, legal definition — it is simply a traditional Japanese inn, typically sporting tatami floors, shoji screens, kaiseki dinners, and onsen hot spring baths.
Our list of Key hotels features ryokan across the country, and you might split them into two categories. The first are the hyper-traditional ryokan, those with centuries-old roots like Ochiairo, Hiiragiya, and Asaba, that preserve the most traditional forms and customs of these storied inns.
On the other end, you have the modern ryokan — less tied to tradition, they sport updated or even radical forms of design, architecture, and luxuries; even if, at their core, they take their appeal from the same onsen baths, kaiseki dinners, and connection with the countryside that have drawn travelers for generations. Look to Zaborin, Suiran, A Luxury Collection Hotel, Kyoto, and Amanemu for some of the most superlative examples.
The Most Unique Japanese Key Hotels That Defy Categorization
It’s easy enough to put Japanese hotels into neat buckets. We’ve already given Tokyo credit for its luxury skyscrapers, and the countryside for its sublime ryokan. But amongst the Key hotels of Japan, we see a plenty of gems with no such easy categorization.
In Nagoya, the The Tower Hotel Nagoya takes a 1954-vintage television tower and builds a hotel around it; the tower’s iron support beams cut diagonally through the walls, floors, and ceilings of the rooms. In Kumura, Izumo Hotel The Cliff carves eight rooms like bunkers into the cliffside over the ocean. And in Naoshima, Benesse House is an art museum-hotel on a tiny, isolated island with installations by Jackson Pollock and James Turrell.
See More: The Most Unique Key Hotels in Japan
Click below to jump to each distinction:
The Three Key Hotels
Hakone-machi: Gora Kadan
Kyoto: HOTEL THE MITSUI KYOTO
Mie: Amanemu
Tokyo: Bvlgari Hotel Tokyo
Tokyo: Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo at Otemachi
Tokyo: Palace Hotel Tokyo
The Two Key Hotels
Fujikawaguchiko: Fufu Kawaguchiko
Hatsukaichi-shi: Sekitei
Hokkaido: Zaborin
Ishigaki city: Jusandi
Izu City: Asaba
Kyoto: Aman Kyoto
Kyoto: The Shinmonzen
Naoshima: Benesse House
Nikko: Fufu Nikko
Nikko: The Ritz-Carlton, Nikko
Onna: Halekulani Okinawa
Tokyo: Aman Tokyo
Tokyo: JANU Tokyo
Tokyo: The Capitol Hotel Tokyu
Toyooka: Nishimuraya Honkan
Yufu: ENOWA Yufu
Yufu: Kamenoi Besso
The One Key Hotels
Atami: Atami Izusan Karaku
Awara: Beniya Kofuyuden
Beppu: ANA InterContinental Beppu Resort & Spa
Fukuoka: The Ritz-Carlton Fukuoka
Ginoza: The Hiramatsu Hotels & Resorts Ginoza
Goto: GOTO RETREAT by Onko Chishin
Hachimantai: ANA InterContinental Appi Kogen Resort
Hakone: Fufu Hakone
Hakone: Hakone Gora Karaku
Hakone: The Hiramatsu Hotels & Resorts Sengokuhara
Izu City: Arcana Izu
Izu City: Ochiairo
Kaga-Onsen: Beniya Mukayu
Kaga-shi: Araya Totoan
Kagoshima: GAJOEN
Karuizawa: Fufu Karuizawa Wind in the Sunshine
Karuizawa: Fufu Kyu-Karuizawa Restful Forest
Karuizawa: SHISHI-IWA-HOUSE Karuizawa
Kumura: Izumo Hotel The Cliff
Kutchan: Sansui Niseko
Kyoto: Ace Hotel Kyoto
Kyoto: Dusit Thani Kyoto
Kyoto: Four Seasons Hotel Kyoto
Kyoto: Fufu Kyoto
Kyoto: Garrya Nijo Castle Kyoto
Kyoto: Genji Kyoto
Kyoto: Hiiragiya
Kyoto: Hotel The Celestine Kyoto Gion
Kyoto: Kanamean Nishitomiya
Kyoto: MUNI KYOTO by Onko Chishin
Kyoto: Park Hyatt Kyoto
Kyoto: ROKU KYOTO, LXR Hotels & Resorts
Kyoto: Six Senses Kyoto
Kyoto: Suiran, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Kyoto
Kyoto: The Hotel Seiryu Kyoto Kiyomizu
Kyoto: The Ritz-Carlton, Kyoto
Kyoto: Kifune Ugenta
Matsuyama: SETOUCHI RETREAT by Onko Chishin
Minakami: Bettei Senjuan
Miyota: The Hiramatsu Karuizawa Miyota
Nagato: Bettei Otozure
Nago: The Ritz-Carlton, Okinawa
Nagoya: The Tower Hotel Nagoya
Nagoya: TIAD, Autograph Collection
Nakijin: One Suite THE GRAND
Nanjo: Hyakuna Garan
Naoshima: Naoshima Ryokan Roka
Nara: Fufu Nara
Nara: JW Marriott Hotel Nara
Narai: BYAKU Narai
Nasu: Nasu Mukunone
Niigata: Satoyama-Jujo
Nikko Kinugawa Keisui
Niseko: Higashiyama Niseko Village, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve
Niseko: Muwa Niseko
Niseko: Park Hyatt Niseko Hanazono
Niseko: Setsu Niseko
Numazu: Numazu Club
Onomichi: Ryokan Onomichi Nishiyama
Onomichi: Azumi Setoda
Osaka: Conrad Osaka
Osaka: InterContinental Osaka
Osaka: The Ritz-Carlton, Osaka
Osaka: W Osaka
Shima: The Hiramatsu Hotels & Resorts Kashikojima
Takayama-shi: Wanosato
Toba-shi: Oyado The Earth
Tokyo: Andaz Tokyo
Tokyo: Bellustar Tokyo, A Pan Pacific Hotel
Tokyo: Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo at Marunouchi
Tokyo: Hotel New Otani Tokyo - Executive House ZEN
Tokyo: K5
Tokyo: Mandarin Oriental Tokyo
Tokyo: Shangri-La Tokyo
Tokyo: The Aoyama Grand Hotel
Tokyo: The Okura Tokyo
Tokyo: The Peninsula Tokyo
Tokyo: The Prince Gallery Tokyo Kioicho, a Luxury Collection Hotel
Tokyo: The Ritz-Carlton, Tokyo
Tokyo: The Tokyo Station Hotel
Tokyo: Trunk Hotel Yoyogi Park
Unzen: RYOTEI HANZUIRYO
Yakushima: Sankara Hotel & Spa Yakushima
Yokohama: InterContinental Yokohama Pier 8
Yokohama: The Kahala Hotel & Resort Yokohama
