Why guide?
This eco-conscious, laid-back luxurious lodge group has made its first foray into Japan with 1 Hotel Tokyo. The towering 211-key property has the entire model’s trademark touches—nature-inspired areas, calming interiors, and a robust deal with wellbeing—mixed with refined native influences like revived Japanese supplies. You gained’t discover tatami mats or shoji screens right here. Instead, the five-star lodge’s daring providing features a stylish French-Japanese restaurant, a classy Japanese craft-gin bar, and an natural wellness program.
Set the scene
Set over the thirty eighth–forty third flooring of the Akasaka Trust Tower in Japan’s capital metropolis, 1 Hotel Tokyo is the calm above the (Tokyo) storm—they don’t name it the “sanctuary in the sky” for nothing. Here, new arrivals linger within the five-star lodge’s plant-filled check-in space dabbing brows with chilly flannels and sipping ruby-colored glasses of chilled rose tea—it is all a part of the welcome ritual.
Just off the reception, Japanese and worldwide creatives in preppy fits hunch over MacBooks slurping strawberry matcha lattes with Tokyo’s skyline forming their Zoom backdrop. By evening, this nifty work space transforms into Spotted Stone, the lodge’s plush cocktail bar lounge. Expect vigorous, clubby vibes as native DJs pump out deep home and dance to soul and techno, relying on the temper. It’s the sort of place destined to turn into a go-to spot for artists, designers, influencers, and fashionistas.
In an space dominated by high-rise workplace buildings, embassies, and enterprise accommodations, 1 Hotel Tokyo is the gentle energy the district didn’t understand it wanted. Like different 1 Hotel properties, natural biophilic design ideas lie at its coronary heart—there are round 1,500 potted vegetation, 40 completely different species, and a full-time in-house botanist. Throughout the lodge, Brooklyn-based inside design studio, Crème, introduces run-your-hand-across-me textures like moss, reclaimed woods, and Oya stone—a constructing materials favored by Frank Lloyd Wright within the design of Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel. These finishes are subtly blended with modernist furnishings and touches impressed by age-old (typically forgotten) Japanese strategies like sakan, a type of plastering utilizing straw, sand, lime, and clay to create an natural textured end.
The backstory
American billionaire, non-public fairness magnate, and lodge kingpin Barry Sternlicht is the brains behind the rapidly-growing 1 Hotels—a sustainability-informed, luxurious lodge chain that now has 13 accommodations unfold throughout Asia and Europe, although primarily in North America. Sternlicht launched the then forward-looking W Hotel group in 1998 earlier than promoting to Marriott in 2016. He quickly realized W Hotel regulars would develop up wanting one thing equally progressive—one thing rooted in coronary heart, nature, and sustainability.
He launched 1 Hotels in 2015 and has grown the model to 13 properties, with the help of skilled hotelier Raul Leal. All of the group’s accommodations attraction to wellbeing-loving hedonists with a conscience—common visitors are predominantly feminine (round 60%). 1 Hotel Tokyo sees them leap into the Japanese market with the help of the Mori Trust, certainly one of Japan’s main actual property firms.
The rooms
Almost in direct juxtaposition to downtown Tokyo and its industrial, glass-fronted excessive rises and flickering neon lights, all of 1 Hotel Tokyo’s 211 lodge rooms and suites are nature-influenced, mollifying areas with spa-like interiors, earthy, grounding hues, and minimalist touches. With wellbeing on the core, it’s not stunning to see a meditation mattress overlooking town’s iconic skyline. While interiors really feel a bit of misplaced (am I in Tokyo or Bali?), maybe that’s the purpose: to offer visitors with a relaxing, snug retreat away from the chaos on the streets beneath. There are nods to Japan by way of upcycled moss art work and using Japanese crafting strategies to create finishes.
In preserving with the 1 Hotels mantra, considerate steps have been made to scale back waste. There aren’t any single-use plastics wherever and every room has a faucet with filtered water, glasses created from recycled wine bottles, and coat hangers customary from previous milk bottles. Even the napkins have a twin function, with directions on the right way to use (*1*) espresso machines printed on the again. Showers have three-minute egg timers to encourage visitors to be conscious of water consumption, although fret not if you happen to favor a soak—bogs even have deep baths with geranium important oil-scented tub salts. Rainfall showers include natural, medicinal toiletries by UK-based sustainable physique care model Bamford.
Aside from all of the necessities anticipated of a five-star lodge (flatscreen TVs with streaming, well-stocked minibars, and pillowy mattresses) sensible touches have been thought of—USB and USB-C plug sockets and temper lighting controls are inside easy-reach bedside. If I had been to be hyper-critical, designated desks (there are small round tables, not conducive to working) that benefit from far-reaching views and have plug sockets shut by can be a pleasant addition. But perhaps that goes towards the conscious, relaxation-led ethos. The finest rooms are southeast going through and boast gorgeous vistas over Tokyo Tower, the Rainbow Bridge, and Tokyo Bay.
Food and drink
All eating choices are unfold throughout the 1 Hotel Tokyo’s thirty eighth ground. Beyond the reception space, Spotted Stone supplies late-night cocktail bar vibes and is blessed with a photo-worthy, cloud-shaped backbar showcasing nearly 100 Japanese craft gins that influencers love. The bar serves olives, Japanese charcuterie, and beef Wagyu sandwiches, which accompany elegant, well-balanced cocktails. Zero-proof choices are additionally accessible—I’d suggest the fiery faux-whiskey-based Na Nashi.
Elsewhere, NiNi (which means two, two), is the lodge’s important eating room: Picture a sprawling open-plan area with moss and sand-colored midcentury-inspired furnishings and floor-to-ceiling home windows framing prolonged metropolis views. Breakfast is served right here from 7 to 10:30 a.m.—a barely later cut-off time can be a welcome enchancment, at the least on weekends. The breakfast buffet has all of the traditional gadgets—cereals, recent juices, pastries—plus the odd Japanese-inspired noodle dish. The à la carte breakfast menu encompasses a assortment of egg-based dishes, like Riviera Benedict (a French twist on the traditional) plus buttermilk waffles, pancakes, and a Bento field possibility for good measure. The must-order dish, nevertheless, is the umami-rich mushroom tartine served with Comté cheese on fluffy handmade sourdough bread.
At the helm of NiNi’s sky kitchen is Canada-born Nikko Policarpio, who lower his tooth at award-winning eating places like Tokyo’s two Michelin star-awarded Crony. The restaurant’s culinary language infuses Mediterranean (largely French Riviera flavors) impressed dishes and Japanese elements and cooking strategies—all with sustainability in thoughts. It’d be clever to move all the way down to NiNi at nightfall to dine as a honeyed hue is forged over a jungle of skyscrapers. Diners could want to go for one thing on the à la carte menu, although I’d advise attempting the well-proportioned five-course tasting menu that begins with a fluffy do-it-yourself focaccia and consists of an indulgent wild oar cavatelli and tender Japanese steak.
Finally, Neighbours, the lodge’s grab-and-go café, is the place to cease by for iced matcha or drip espresso fixes. It’s stocked with native confectionaries, starting from kombucha to popcorn, all at reasonable-ish costs.
The spa
Wellness stays excessive on the listing of 1 Hotel Tokyo’s largest attracts. The Bamford Wellness Spa, on the thirty eighth ground, blends fashionable therapeutic practices with Japanese-influenced therapies—the 90-minute bamboo therapeutic massage is a perfect post-flight treatment. It consists of expert masseuses utilizing Kyoto bamboo and green-tea infused oils to iron out knots. Always end with a steamy session within the hammam and a dip within the 18-meter plant-ringed indoor pool, which has a decently-sized outdoors solar deck working off it. Just across the nook, the lodge’s compact health centre lures even the least fitness-enthusiastic visitors, due to knockout treadmill views extending to the bay.
The neighborhood/space
Akasaka is among the metropolis’s important enterprise districts—extra sharp suites, wage males, and worldwide diplomats than native hipsters and worldwide fashionistas. Its skyline is dominated by company high-rises, enterprise accommodations, and diplomatic dwellings—the US ambassador’s home is a couple of minutes away. That stated, a three-minute stroll in entrance of the lodge is a cluster of sushi bars, tempura eating places, and worldwide spots (even an Irish bar). The buzzy nightlife hotspot of Roppongi is simply a 20-minute stroll away, whereas Tameike-sannō Station metro station connects guests simply to all the principle locations—Ginza is reachable in below 10 minutes and Shibuya is nearer to twenty. Tokyo’s Imperial Palace is below quarter-hour by bike from the lodge’s foyer, whereas Haneda Airport is round a 20-minute taxi experience away (Narita Airport is nearer to an hour).
The service
The service fashion at 1 Hotel Tokyo is easygoing and by no means stuffy. It looks as if group members, wearing hip, minimalist Uniqlo-esque gear, have been briefed to maintain their method pleasant, useful, but laid-back. Fixers relatively than fluffers, they’re completely satisfied to assist with points like forgotten adaptors and are cautious of overly smothering impartial visitors preferring a much less in-your-face service fashion. Activities and eating choices are considered by concierge workers eager to level guests within the route of the very best spots for yakitori or memento looking close by.
Eco effort
Sustainability isn’t an afterthought or a box-ticking CR train right here, it’s on the forefront of 1 Hotels mission—and it reveals. Aside from no-single-use plastics in rooms and the touches talked about beforehand, 1 Hotels’ common 1 Less Thing initiative encourages visitors to depart an merchandise of clothes behind that will likely be donated to a neighborhood charity.
Even the Spotted Stone bar will get in on the eco motion, using all elements and minimizing waste (lemon and lime skins are processed and used to make do-it-yourself syrups for cocktails, for instance). The lodge additionally gives complimentary entry to an Audi Electric Vehicle Experience—a totally electrical Audi Q6 e-tron—to discover town. 1 Hotel Tokyo has achieved a CASBEE certificate, the best award in Japan’s inexperienced constructing metric.
Accessibility
1 Hotel Tokyo has 5 common entry rooms designed to cater to folks with varied accessibility wants. In these rooms, bathtubs and bathrooms have seize bars, doorways are wheelchair-accessible and closets, minibars, and cabinets are lowered. For these with listening to issues, alert kits can be found from reception.
Anything left to say?
You’re in Tokyo, so count on to listen to muffled road noise out of your room (ambulance sirens, automotive horns, and street employees). It’s not uncomfortably loud however mild sleepers can be suggested to pack earplugs.