The Ritz-Carlton Osaka

The Hotel

The Ritz-Carlton Osaka opened on 21 May 1997 as the second Ritz-Carlton in Asia after Hong Kong, and Osaka's first true international five-star — at a moment when central Osaka had no hotel offer above the four-star tier. The architectural commission was Atlanta practice Smallwood Reynolds Stewart Stewart with interiors by Frank Nicholson, the Boston-based hotel-design specialist who had worked on the New York and Boston Ritz-Carltons in the 1980s; the brief from Sumitomo Realty (the Osaka real estate group that developed and continues to own the building) was for a deliberately European-grand-hotel register at odds with the contemporary-Japanese vocabulary that had defined Osaka five-stars to that point. The result reads as a transposed Boston grand hotel — antique chandeliers, oil portraits in the lobby, a 250-piece collection of 18th- and 19th-century European decorative art curated by Nicholson — and three decades on, the building still reads as the most decorated hotel public-space programme in central Japan.

The 291 rooms — including 49 suites — are arranged across the building's 37 floors with the principal architectural decision being the elevation: the Ritz-Carlton occupies floors 23 to 37 of the Herbis Plaza tower, with every guest room above the 23rd floor and floor-to-ceiling Umeda-skyline windows. Standard categories begin at 35 square metres; the Carlton Suite at 60 square metres adds the Club Lounge access on floor 35; the Imperial Suite at 250 square metres is the milestone unit, with a private library, dining room, and wraparound 28th-floor balcony. Bathrooms are travertine and brass; bath products are Asprey, the Ritz-Carlton signature.

The dining programme is the headline operational layer with five distinct restaurants. La Baie is the named French fine-dining room — opened with the hotel in 1997 with executive chef Yoshinori Hashimoto, who has held the Michelin star since the 2010 Osaka guide and continues at the kitchen; the lobby Lounge runs the British afternoon-tea programme on the original Frank Nicholson 1997 service silver, the most-recommended afternoon tea in Osaka. Splendido handles Italian; Hanagatami the kaiseki and tempura; Xiang Tao the Cantonese. The Bar runs the cocktail programme on floor 24 with the Umeda skyline view. The Spa & Wellness Centre is the largest hotel spa in Osaka — 2,200 square metres across the lower-ground level with a 17-metre indoor heated pool, full-treatment programme, and a sauna-and-jacuzzi complex.

The Umeda position is the unambiguous booking decision. From the front door it is two minutes by underground concourse to JR Osaka Station and the Hankyu/Hanshin terminals, four minutes to the Hep Five and Yodobashi shopping complexes, six minutes to Umeda Sky Building, eight minutes to Nakanoshima island and the Festival Tower (Conrad Osaka), and twelve minutes by Midosuji Line to Namba and the Dotonbori entertainment district. For business travellers needing the JR Osaka access and the Marriott Bonvoy programme, and for connoisseur travellers wanting the European-grand-hotel register over the contemporary alternatives, the Ritz-Carlton is unambiguous.

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