L'Hotel de Hiei

I went out hoping to cool down on a hot summer's day. I think it was about 5 degrees off. It's old, but the garden had been mowed and it felt neat. I got a larger room, so there were two toilets and I could take a leisurely bath in the bath. The food was pretty tasty. The Garden Museum was closed and it was foggy, so I didn't have anywhere to go after visiting Enryaku-ji Temple, but I was lucky to be able to check into the hotel before check-in time. The next day, I was given a ride to Kyoto Station, which made things easier.

We stayed here as a family with teenagers and it was just perfect with lots of room. The quality of the food was just exceptional and the staff so helpful. We will definitely go back to visit. Don't miss the Early Morning Trip to the local Buddhist Retreat to experience a truly spiritual trip.

This is one of those Japanese attempts at cross-cultural connection-- when it hits, it hits deeply; when it misses, it's still good. French-ish cuisine on a mountaintop overlooking a two-million year old lake. This is one of the properties of the Hoshino group. Idea of the group is to acquire distressed properties, and through operational excellence, turn them around. This hotel certainly doesn't disappoint. Four things are exceptional: ambience, staff, cuisine, nexus for larger experiences. 1) By ambience, I mean location and size. Spectacular location high on Mt. Hiei NE of Kyoto. Spectacular views to the west and south of Lake Biwa. Small number of guest rooms, around 30, mean high level of attention to guests. Rooms well-appointed. Deep silence here. Public areas airy and welcoming. 2) Staff: welcoming and professional. Hard to overstate level of graciousness and hospitality. 3) Cuisine: French technique, local ingredients. A real effort to source locally, from eggs to veggies to fish and meats. They found a way to defuse funazushi, one of the harshest foods ever devised! Bread baked onsite. Only gripe: no butter on the table, which no French kitchen would forgive! High tea, dinner, breakfast included with room price. 4) Nexus: From an onsite lecture about tea cultivation and production, to an opportunity to visit nearby Enryakuji, a 1200 year-old temple, and listen to monks chanting their morning sutra, this group tries to make the hotel not only a place of great hospitality and luxury, but a sincere nexus of experience with the local community. Not cheap, but well worth it, with connections to other places of deep meaning such as Ishiyamadera, the site where the (female) author of the world's first novel, Genji Monogatari, composed her masterwork.