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Does Kyoto really need another luxury hotel? That’s the question I asked myself last spring while checking into the Imperial Hotel, Kyoto around its March 2026 opening.
Kyoto, the capital of Japan for more than 1,000 years between 794 and 1868, has seen a rush of luxury hotel debuts from international brands, including openings from Four Seasons, Park Hyatt, Aman, Six Senses, and most recently, Capella, over the past decade as visitor numbers have soared. They all lean into the traditions and culture of the city, but ultimately, they’re imports.
The Imperial Hotel in Kyoto is different. The first Imperial hotel opened in Tokyo in 1890 and served as a base for international dignitaries and business luminaries at a time when the nation was focused on modernization. The Imperial Kyoto is equally pioneering, breathing new life into the 90-year-old Yasaka Kaikan theater, a nationally registered Tangible Cultural Property and, at a modest 100 feet, the tallest building in the traditional Gion neighborhood.
General manager Reiko Sakata says the Imperial Kyoto aims to work closely with the Gion community, where homes, restaurants, teahouses, and hotels exist side by side.
Photo by Masatomo Moriyama (L); courtesy of Imperial Hotel, Kyoto (R)
Building on the Imperial group’s 135 years of hospitality experience, as well as the Yasaka Kaikan’s traditional role in the Gion neighborhood, the hotel is able to open doors to cultural experiences that would often be difficult for visitors to access without a personal connection.
Originally built in 1936 and funded by local teahouse and geisha associations, the theater had fallen into disrepair until a revitalization project and architectural competition were launched with the aim of transforming it into a hotel. “The Imperial Kyoto was the only hotel in the competition that planned to retain and restore the building,” explained general manager Reiko Sakata.
Restoring a 90-year-old Gion landmark
The Yasaka Kaikan forms a striking presence in Gion, a neighborhood of narrow stone-paved streets and low-rise traditional teahouses. Built long before modern height restrictions were imposed, the former theater’s facade is considerably taller than its neighbors’, which are limited to 40 feet.
The building echoes historical Japanese castle keeps and was restored by Obayashi Corporation, the same company that built the original theater in 1936, lending the project a sense of continuity. Some external walls and other original features, including 16,387 exterior tiles, were preserved, while others needed to be rebuilt. While the exterior looks much as it always has, the interiors have been completely transformed.
Inside the Imperial Hotel, Kyoto’s guest rooms
The Imperial Kyoto has only 55 guest rooms, split between the restored heritage wing and the hotel’s new main building.
Photo by Masatomo Moriyama
With 55 guest rooms, the Imperial Hotel, Kyoto is small in scale but large in impact. Internal spaces by New Material Research Laboratory, a design studio established by architect Tomoyuki Sakakida and photographer and visual artist Hiroshi Sugimoto, embrace both old and new, resulting in public lounges, restaurants, and rooms that feel calming, comforting, and contemporary.
Guest rooms are split between the heritage wing and the main building, featuring natural materials like traditionally dyed wall coverings made with silk from Toyama, zelkova wood paneling selected by the interior designers, washi paper, and tatami reed mats.
These are quiet rooms in multiple senses. The subtle, soothing design doesn’t shout for attention, and they’re also physically silent, perfectly soundproofed, with blackout blinds that keep light out.
The duvet was the comfiest I’ve wrapped myself in for years, heavy but not too hot, and I slept better here than I had in weeks. In the bathroom, there were big, quick-drying fluffy towels and bath salts scented with hinoki cypress. It all felt gentle, like taking a step back from the world’s intensity.
The hotel is able to open doors to cultural experiences that would often be difficult for visitors to access without a personal connection.
A theater’s second act
The hotel’s interiors were created by New Material Research Laboratory, the design studio founded by architect Tomoyuki Sakakida and artist Hiroshi Sugimoto.
Courtesy of Imperial Hotel, Kyoto
Sakakida described the ground floor lounge, where hotel guests are welcomed into the property, as being like a stage, echoing the building’s former life as a theater. Unlike much modern architecture that creates drama through sequences of large and small spaces, here the original structure influences how space and height are used.
The lounge expands horizontally, with sloping wooden ceilings leading to large windows where guests in low-slung armchairs enjoy matcha tea and Japanese wagashi sweets facing a narrow sliver of garden punctuated by moss, stone, and the torii gate of the hotel’s small shrine. The lounge also features artworks by Sugimoto, including a byōbu folding screen with stylized pine trees painted on a gold background behind the reception desk, and one of his iconic large-format seascape photographs on the opposite wall.
One floor below the lounge is the stone-lined swimming pool, a dramatic, unexpected find in the hotel’s basement. Drinks are served between March and November on the rooftop, the highest vantage point in Gion and reserved only for hotel guests; at the Old Imperial Bar, inspired by the original in the Tokyo hotel, the sultry counter and low lighting are likely to lead to long evenings of conversation and cocktails made with local ingredients like Kyoto-grown matcha.
The Imperial Kyoto’s stone-lined swimming pool is one floor below the hotel’s ground-floor lounge.
Courtesy of Imperial Hotel, Kyoto
Gion is full of fantastic little restaurants, but the hotel’s restaurant, Ren, is a real standout, serving French-accented Japanese cuisine from a team of engaging chefs at a wooden counter. In the morning, even devoted egg eaters should step out of their comfort zone with the Japanese breakfast created by chef Hiroyuki Kato of Gion Kawakami, an exceptional small neighborhood restaurant behind sliding wooden doors where I had one of the best dinners of my life. Kato’s breakfast, delicate morsels served across multiple tiny dishes, was equally memorable.
Navigating overtourism in Gion
Tourism has long been a major driver of the economy in Kyoto, and in the atmospheric streets surrounding the hotel, visitors and residents rub alongside each other in relative harmony. But overtourism in some areas of the city has become an issue, and at one point I found myself jostling for space with crowds of kimono-clad cosplaying visitors blocking the way, intrusively snapping photos of maiko apprentice geisha, and noisily dragging their suitcases through the quiet streets. The city has resorted to putting up posters reminding visitors to “mind your manners when in Kyoto for Touristship,” imploring them to be considerate, move quietly, not litter or smoke in public, and not to take photos where prohibited.
Gion takes its name from Gion-sha, the former name of nearby Yasaka Shrine, one of Kyoto’s most important Shinto shrines.
Courtesy of Imperial Hotel, Kyoto (L); photo by Masatomo Moriyama (R)
“The issue with Kyoto is that unlike Tokyo, where offices, hotels, and residential areas are largely separated, here it’s all mixed up together,” Sakata says. “This is why residents start to get annoyed.” Kyoto has long been a place of complex rules, with a system of codes and customs that applies as stringently to non-Kyotoite Japanese as it does to international tourists. It’s part of what makes Kyoto such a magical place to visit, but can also be a source of friction. Sakata believes that, as a new hotel arriving in Gion, it’s vitally important to work with the community to ensure things go smoothly: “This is a neighborhood where homes have always lived alongside businesses and restaurants. We want to work with the community to ensure we have a positive impact.”
Connecting guests to the neighborhood
That impact comes in many ways, but perhaps the easiest opportunity for guests to connect thoughtfully and respectfully with the community is through experiences that reveal this secretive neighborhood’s treasures. Kyoto is, as Sakata explains, a city where personal introductions can open the doors to hidden worlds.
During my stay I headed to fifth-generation imperial doll maker Shimada Kouen to paint my own maneki-neko lucky cat; I also visited a traditional teahouse for a glimpse into the lives of geisha and the traditional arts that have been performed in Kyoto for centuries. I lived in Japan for eight years in the early 2000s but this was the first time I’d entered this mysterious and often misunderstood world.
From the hotel’s upper floors, guests can look out across the tiled rooftops and low-rise buildings of historic Gion.
Courtesy of Imperial Hotel, Kyoto
I chatted with Honoka, a young maiko apprentice geisha, about everything from how long it takes to do her hair and make-up to what she does on her days off and why she decided to become a maiko in the first place. It was an experience that felt precious and rare.
The Imperial isn’t the only hotel in town arranging these kinds of experiences. But the hotel’s location and the relationships it has forged make it an intrinsic part of the Gion community. Visiting a maiko in a teahouse feels as comfortable and as easy as popping in to see the neighbors.
And perhaps that’s the magic that the Imperial has created here, becoming part of the neighborhood in a way that’s as considered, as careful, and as gentle as a geisha’s feet sliding over the tatami in a traditional performance. The hotel feels like a very welcome addition to the city, and one that is likely to make its presence felt through quiet, thoughtful actions rather than shouting about it.
