Aman Tokyo

Aman made its name with resorts set apart from everything around them. In Tokyo it opened, in December 2014, at the top of Otemachi Tower, an office building in the business district between Tokyo Station and the Imperial Palace. The idea of retreat had to be built vertically. The hotel holds two MICHELIN Keys.

The sequence begins at street level, where the tower stands in a planted forest, and continues by lift to the 33rd floor. The lobby, the Italian restaurant and the lounge are on that floor. The spa and pool are on the floor above, and the 84 rooms and suites are higher still. By the time a guest reaches the lobby, the district has been left below.

A lantern on the 33rd floor

Kerry Hill Architects designed the hotel's interiors inside a tower by Kohn Pedersen Fox. The defining space is the lobby, a void of about 30 metres that rises through floors 33 to 38. It is conceived as the inside of a lantern, with panels of translucent washi paper stretched over a shoji-style timber frame.

The materials are few: washi, camphor wood and basalt, which covers walls, columns and floors in the large shared spaces. A long wooden platform on one side of the lobby refers to the engawa, the raised veranda between inside and outside in a Japanese house. At the centre is a garden with a water feature, whose display changes with the seasons.

Room to live in

The rooms carry the same idea into private space. The smallest suites measure 71 square metres. At the top, the 157-square-metre Aman Suite has an open-plan living area with a wooden kitchen and a dining table, closer to an apartment than a hotel room.

Every room has floor-to-ceiling windows, shoji sliding doors and a deep stone furo bath, finished in wood, stone and washi. Some have tatami floors or sunken living areas. The MICHELIN Guide's inspectors read them as a modern, urban interpretation of a classic ryokan.

Orientation does the rest. The Garden View Suites look towards the gardens, the Deluxe Suites face west into the sunset, and the Tokyo Suites look east across the city. In the City Suite, a freestanding black bath stands in front of the windows.

Bathing above the city

The spa is where Aman Tokyo departs most clearly from a conventional city hotel. It covers 2,500 square metres over two floors, which the hotel describes as the largest hotel spa in Tokyo. At its centre is a 30-metre heated pool, with the skyline beyond the glass.

Bathing comes before treatment. Onsen-style hot baths, steam rooms and a Japanese bath are part of the circuit. The Misogi ritual, inspired by Shinto purification, takes about an hour moving between steam, showers and hot baths before a treatment. Each of the eight treatment rooms has its own dressing room, bathroom, steam shower and relaxation area. A 24-hour gym and a yoga and Pilates studio complete the floor.

Eating in the tower

On the 33rd floor, Arva is the hotel's Italian restaurant. Chef Masakazu Hiraki cooks Japanese produce through his years in Italy, and the restaurant is a Selected restaurant in the MICHELIN Guide Tokyo 2026.

Musashi by Aman serves Edomae sushi as an omakase at a hinoki counter, under master chef Hiroyuki Musashi. The Lounge by Aman handles cocktails and seasonal afternoon tea.

The list is short for a hotel of this standing, and that is part of the choice. Aman's group built its more sociable Tokyo house elsewhere: Janu Tokyo, in Azabudai Hills, has eight places to eat and drink and describes its dining as "devoted to the collective joy of dining with others".

Otemachi, from above and below

Below ground, the tower connects to Otemachi station and its five subway lines, and Tokyo Station, with its shinkansen platforms, is close by. The Imperial Palace gardens lie a short distance away.

At street level is the Otemachi Forest. Designed by Michel Desvigne with Nihon Sekkei and built between 2009 and 2013, it covers 3,600 square metres on an engineered slab above a metro station. Its more than 200 trees were first grown in the mountains near Tokyo. The Café by Aman sits among them, and La Pâtisserie is two levels below ground. The stay ends where it began, under the trees, 33 floors below the lobby.

Sources: Aman; IFDM; Michel Desvigne Paysagiste; Sharp; MICHELIN Guide; Janu Tokyo.