Park Hyatt Kyoto

Everyone arrives in Kyoto with the same picture already in mind: stone lanes, tiled roofs, wooden shopfronts and a pagoda standing over the whole arrangement. Higashiyama is where that picture actually is, and the hotel is built into it rather than beside it, low and broken into parts, so that from the lane it reads as a continuation of the street.

Indoors, the work is in the materials. Tamo wood, local craft and contemporary art give the rooms a quiet, tactile character, and the categories divide into two ideas of the city: Garden View and Garden Terrace rooms look inward at planting and stone, while Pagoda View rooms take the roofline and Yasaka Pagoda itself. Yasaka cooks teppanyaki with French technique against that view, Kohaku pours Japanese spirits afterwards and Kyoyamato keeps kaiseki in a teahouse.

Built into Ninenzaka

Ninenzaka runs past the door, one of the stone lanes that make this part of Kyoto what it is, with Kodai-ji temple a short walk away. The advantage of staying here is the time of day. The lanes belong to the coach parties in the middle hours and to almost nobody early and late, which is when the neighbourhood is at its best and when only the people staying in it are about.

Tamo wood and two views

The rooms are finished in tamo wood with local materials and contemporary art, warm and restrained, with daybeds set where the light lands. The choice is really between directions. Garden View and Garden Terrace categories look inward at planting, stone and rain, which is the older Kyoto pleasure. Pagoda View rooms take the roofline and the pagoda instead. Both are right; they simply produce very different mornings.

Teppanyaki, kaiseki, a nightcap

Yasaka works teppanyaki with French technique in front of guests, with the pagoda and the city beyond the glass, which makes dinner a performance in two directions at once. Kyoyamato serves traditional kaiseki in its teahouse setting for anyone wanting the older form. Kyoto Bistro keeps things lighter at street level on Ninenzaka. Kohaku closes the evening with cocktails built on Japanese spirits and whatever the season has produced.