Four Seasons Kyoto

Four Seasons Hotel Kyoto is built around Shakusui-en, an 800-year-old pond garden referenced in the 12th-century Tale of the Heike. It holds one MICHELIN Key and has a 20 metre indoor pool, which is rare in luxury Kyoto. No restaurant here holds a MICHELIN star: the starred Sushi Wakon has closed.

"Built around Shakusui-en, an 800 year old pond garden, with a 20 metre indoor pool and the most resort like grounds of any Kyoto hotel."

Aggregate 9.4/10 on our editorial scale (Room & Design, Service, Location). Independently scored; see our methodology. This is our opinion, not an aggregate of user reviews.

Affiliate disclosure: we may earn a commission from bookings at no cost to you. We never accept payment for placement. Hotel status, room product and Michelin ratings were verified against official sources and the current Michelin Guide in July 2026.

What makes Four Seasons Kyoto special?

The garden is the reason to stay here. Shakusui-en is an 800-year-old pond garden dating to the late Heian period and referenced in the 12th-century Tale of the Heike, and the hotel is built around it rather than beside it. There is a tea pavilion, Shakusui-tei, in the garden, a glass bridge across the water and koi feeding for children. Very few city hotels anywhere own a heritage garden of this age, and no amount of money can build another one. The second point is practical. Four Seasons Kyoto has a 20 metre indoor pool with jacuzzis and a 306 square metre 24-hour fitness centre, which puts it in the small group of Kyoto luxury hotels where you can actually swim. Aman Kyoto, HOTEL THE MITSUI KYOTO, Capella Kyoto and Park Hyatt Kyoto have no pool at all. Third, be clear about what it does not have. There is no natural hot spring, only an ofuro bathhouse, and no restaurant here holds a MICHELIN star. The hotel holds one MICHELIN Key, which rates the stay, not the kitchens.

Which room should you book?

The count needs explaining. Four Seasons Kyoto has 180 accommodations in total: 110 guest rooms, 48 of them interconnecting, 13 suites including a Presidential Suite, and 57 Hotel Residences, over five floors. Secondary sources often quote 123 rooms and suites, which is the hotel inventory excluding the residences and is also correct if described that way. The 48 interconnecting rooms are worth knowing about, because that many connecting doors is unusual in Kyoto and makes this one of the easier luxury options for families. Architecture is by Kume Sekkei with interiors by Hirsch Bedner Associates, and that is where the most common criticism lands: reviewers describe the rooms and the beige and brown stone bathrooms as international Four Seasons rather than distinctly Kyoto. If you want a room that tells you where you are, the garden views do more of that work than the interiors do, so ask for a Shakusui-en outlook.

Where should you eat and drink?

Read this section carefully, because the dining line-up was rebuilt in 2024 and 2025 and most published descriptions are out of date. No restaurant at Four Seasons Hotel Kyoto currently holds a MICHELIN star. The hotel's long-standing one-star sushi restaurant, Sushi Wakon, has closed. Its replacement, Sushi Ginza Onodera at Four Seasons Hotel Kyoto, opened on 12 October 2024 and holds no Kyoto star; the Ginza Onodera group's stars belong to its restaurants in other cities, New York among them. What Onodera does offer is Edomae omakase at a 10-seat counter carved from a single piece of 400-year-old hinoki, plus two private dining rooms, under head chef Takuya Kubo. EMBA KYOTO GRILL is the modern Kyoto steakhouse: dry-aged and charcoal-grilled meat, seafood and Kyoto vegetables, with 106 indoor and 74 outdoor covers. FUJU is the tea-house lounge across the glass bridge in the pond garden, SEY is the izakaya-inspired cocktail bar, and there is also The Lounge & Bar and in-room dining. The old Brasserie no longer exists.

What is the spa and pool like?

Four Seasons Kyoto is the pool hotel among Kyoto's luxury set. There is a 20 metre indoor pool with jacuzzis, a 306 square metre 24-hour fitness centre, a sauna, an ofuro and a relaxation lounge with four daybeds. The Spa has seven treatment rooms, two couple's suites and five singles, a private bath menu that includes sake baths, and a signature Kyoto Green Tea Therapy ritual with a green-tea footbath. Be accurate about the bathing: this is a Japanese bathhouse, an ofuro, not a natural hot spring. If a genuine onsen is what you want in Kyoto, Aman Kyoto and HOTEL THE MITSUI KYOTO both draw real spring water, and neither has a swimming pool. That is the choice the city keeps forcing, and Four Seasons sits firmly on the pool side of it.

Where is Four Seasons Kyoto, and how do you get there?

Four Seasons Kyoto is in Higashiyama, in the Myohoin quarter beside the Kyoto National Museum and Sanjusangen-do, on the eastern side of the city. Transport is genuinely good: Kyoto Station is 10 minutes by car and Kawaramachi and the city centre 10 minutes by car, both official figures, Kansai International Airport is 90 minutes by car and Osaka Itami 60 minutes. Kiyomizu-dera is a 15-minute walk, per the hotel, which is the single best thing about the address, because you can walk up before the day crowds build. The compromise is the evening. Gion is roughly 1.5 km away, approximately 20 to 25 minutes on foot or 10 minutes by taxi, and you cannot casually stroll to the Kamo River for dinner the way you can from Capella Kyoto or The Shinmonzen. Expect taxis after dark. Six Senses Kyoto is effectively on the same block, so the two compete directly on location.

What do guests consistently say?

Guest opinion is warmer about the garden than about the hotel around it. Shakusui-en is what reviewers describe first and remember longest, along with the pool, the family friendliness and, in published reviews, breakfast as the strongest meal. The criticisms cluster in three places. The first is design: a common complaint is that the interiors read as international rather than Kyoto, and that the rooms and the beige and brown stone bathrooms could be almost any Four Seasons. The second is arrival, with reviewers describing a chaotic check-in experience. The third is food and beverage, which has been in transition through the restaurant changeover, with the closure of Sushi Wakon and the arrival of Sushi Ginza Onodera and EMBA KYOTO GRILL, so consistency has been uneven. A fourth theme is location. Guests who assumed they could walk to Gion in the evening report otherwise.

Honest cons: who should skip it?

Three real drawbacks. First, the location is a compromise. Gion and the Kamo River are not comfortably walkable in the evening, with Gion roughly 1.5 km off, so nights out mean taxis in both directions even though daytime transport is excellent and Kiyomizu-dera is a 15-minute walk. Second, the interiors read international rather than Kyoto. It is the most repeated criticism in reviews: handsome, expensively finished rooms and beige and brown stone bathrooms that could be any Four Seasons in any city, which is a strange thing to accept in a hotel that owns an 800-year-old garden. Third, arrival and dining have been in flux. Reviewers describe a chaotic arrival experience, and the kitchen has been through a full changeover, with Sushi Wakon closed and Sushi Ginza Onodera and EMBA KYOTO GRILL new. Breakfast is the meal that comes out best. There is no natural hot spring either, only an ofuro bathhouse.