Aman Kyoto

The Hotel

Aman Kyoto opened on 1 November 2019 on a 32-hectare (80-acre) parcel in the Takagamine foothills of northern Kyoto, at the foot of Hidari Daimonji, the western of the two mountains where the Gozan no Okuribi fires are lit each August during Obon. The site comprises 72 acres of permanent moss-and-cedar forest and 8 acres of formal Japanese gardens originally laid out for a kimono-merchant's collection of textiles and paintings that was never built; Aman acquired the abandoned site in 2014 and commissioned Australian architect Kerry Hill (Aman Tokyo, Aman Sveti Stefan, the Datai Langkawi) to design a hotel that would integrate the existing gardens, mountain spring, and forest pathways. Hill died in August 2018, and the hotel opened a year later as one of his final completed projects, the most architecturally considered urban resort in the Aman portfolio and, by every reading, the most considered hotel arrival in Kyoto in a generation.

There are 24 guest rooms across four guest pavilions and two two-bedroom villas, 26 keys total. The pavilions, all single-storey blackened-cedar buildings set into the gardens at different elevations, are connected by stone paths and viewing platforms; each pavilion houses six guest rooms. The standard Suite runs to 70 square metres with a separate sitting area, a private terrace facing the forest, a deep stone soaking tub, and floor-to-ceiling windows facing the moss garden. The Takagamine Suite, the property's signature room, runs to 226 square metres with two bedrooms (one Western, one tatami), a private dining room with kitchen and wine cellar, and a private terrace overlooking the central pond. The two two-bedroom Villas, Heian and Hidari, are stand-alone buildings with their own gardens, private onsen, and two-bedroom configurations sized for multi-generational families. The interior register, by Hill, leans monastic-Japanese: hand-loomed beige textiles, charcoal-black timber floors, hand-shaped ceramics, and natural Hinoki cypress in every bathroom.

The Aman Kyoto Living Pavilion, the property's central public space, runs the breakfast-and-lunch programme with a working open kitchen and views over the central pond. The Taka-an restaurant, set into a separate sub-pavilion, runs the property's signature multi-course Japanese kaiseki dinner programme under a chef trained at the two-Michelin-starred Sojiki Nakahigashi. The Sushi Bar Nama, opened in 2022, runs the property's intimate omakase counter, 8 seats only. The Aman Spa, set into the property's own bathing pavilion, runs the property's onsen circuit drawn from a local spring (one of the only true urban onsen in Kyoto, reactivated by Aman from a long-dormant traditional spring) plus six treatment rooms with the brand's signature programme. The hot spring pools, separate male and female, are the property's quietest hour at sunset.

The garden grounds themselves are the property's most-quoted feature: a working moss garden of more than thirty Japanese species; a stream-and-pond complex with walking paths, viewing pavilions, and a small Inari shrine; the original kimono-merchant's tea house preserved at the centre of the gardens. The Aman Cooking Pavilion runs daily Japanese cooking classes; the property's Aman essentials shop stocks brand-curated Japanese craft. The Takagamine location, 30 minutes by car from Kyoto Station, 25 minutes from the central Kyoto temples, is intentionally quiet; the property does not offer urban transit access, and the hotel's complimentary car shuttle handles every transfer to and from central Kyoto, the airport, or the Kyoto train system. For Kyoto at the level where the brief is "the most secluded urban Aman in the world", this is the only complete answer.

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