Aman Tokyo or Four Seasons Otemachi? Choosing between Tokyo's two palace-view towers

Two towers, one view

Aman Tokyo and the Four Seasons at Otemachi are about 300 metres apart in Tokyo's banking district. Both sit at the top of an office tower, both have the Otemachi subway station underneath, and both look west over the Imperial Palace gardens to the Shinjuku skyline, with Mount Fuji behind it on a clear morning. I've stayed at both, and it's the question I get asked most about Tokyo: which one?

The short answer is that the Aman has the better room and the Four Seasons has the better everything else. The longer answer depends on how many nights you have and what the trip is for.

The rooms

The Aman wins this one, and it isn't close. Every room is called a suite, and even the smallest is 71 square metres, all pale wood, sliding washi screens and a long window seat running the width of the glass. The TV hides in a tabletop and only rises when you want it, so nothing gets between you and the view. I don't think any hotel room in Tokyo is more beautiful.

The Four Seasons rooms start at about 50 square metres, which is still generous for Tokyo, and they're calm and warm, with gold and lapis-blue touches, a chaise by the window and a big walk-in wardrobe. It's a lovely room. It just isn't the Aman.

But the bed goes the other way. The Aman's felt like two twins pushed together, on the thin, firm side, and that surprised me at those prices. The Four Seasons bed was one of the best I slept in on the whole trip. And a few small things at the Aman feel cheap next to the rest of the room: a hollow minibar door, a Nespresso machine you set up yourself, a plastic cover on the room-service plate. The Aman rooms date from 2014. They're spotless, but the Four Seasons is six years newer and it shows in the little things.

The bath

This is the Aman's trump card. Every suite has a deep stone furo set right against the window, with cypress bath salts and a little card that walks you through the Japanese bathing ritual. A bath at night with the whole city lit up below you is the thing I still think about from that stay. I took one every single night.

The Four Seasons tub is deep and freestanding, with Frédéric Malle products and hinoki salts made for the hotel, and in a lot of the palace-side rooms it sits by the window too. A long soak there is lovely. The Aman's is unforgettable.

Arriving

The Aman lobby is one of the great hotel rooms of the world. You ride up to the 33rd floor and the doors open onto a washi-paper ceiling nearly 30 metres above you, with a still pool, two rock gardens and a huge seasonal ikebana in the middle. You check in sitting down, with green tea and a cold towel. I just stopped and stared.

The Four Seasons lobby is on the 39th floor, with a long, shallow pool reflecting the sky and a domed cupola overhead. It's beautiful in a warmer, more classic way, but it's busier, and you need a second lift to get down to your room. At check-in time, with cars arriving one after another, it can feel a little brisk. If the arrival is what you want to remember, the Aman does it best.

Eating and drinking

Here the Four Seasons pulls clearly ahead. Virtù, the bar, is one of the best in Asia, moody and Parisian with huge windows over the city, and I had a Smoked Ume Fashioned there every night. est, the ten-course Japanese-French dinner, is a proper special night out, and Pigneto does a real Neapolitan pizza when you just want something easy.

At the Aman, everything I ate was good and beautifully plated, but little of it stayed with me, and the portions are small for the prices. The exception is Musashi, the sushi counter, where the chef grows his own rice and makes the ceramics. Book it before you arrive, even if you're staying at the Four Seasons. It's closed on Sundays and Mondays.

Breakfast is closer than you'd think. The Aman's comes from a menu and it's slow, so allow 40 minutes, and the Japanese set is the thing to order. The Four Seasons breakfast is one of the best in Tokyo on a quiet morning, with Fuji at the end of the view and a custard French toast I still dream about, but at 8:30 on a busy day there's a queue at the door. Go early.

Pool and spa

The Aman pool is the more beautiful of the two: 30 metres of black basalt, low loungers along a wall of glass, and the city lit up beside you after dark. It's rarely busy. The spa is the biggest of any hotel in Tokyo, over two floors, with hot Japanese baths in the changing rooms.

The Four Seasons pool is smaller, at 20 metres, with a metallic floor that makes the water shimmer and a heated hydrotherapy pool next to it. It's a serious lap pool, with swim caps required and photos mostly banned, so it isn't a place to float about with a book. The spa is lovely, though, and the Yakusugi Forest Renewal, with cypress from the ancient forests of Yakushima, is worth a booking on its own. I'd call the pool for the Aman and the spa a draw.

Service

Both are very good, and both are at their best on the practical things. The Aman's send-off is the best I've had in Tokyo: the house car to Tokyo Station, someone carrying our bags through the station and walking us all the way to our seats on the bullet train. But for an Aman there were more slips than I expected. I was asked for my room number more than once at dinner, stopped at the entrance when I was plainly a guest, and there's no messaging, so it's always the phone.

The Four Seasons felt warmer from start to finish. They knew our names on the first day, the bar remembered our order, and when I mentioned a birthday there was a bouquet at check-in and a cake in the room. You can message the hotel in the app before you arrive, which made it easy to set things up. One of the front desk team even phoned a ski resort in Karuizawa for us, in Japanese, when we were stuck.

The price

This is what decides it for most people. An entry suite at the Aman starts around $1,400 a night in the quiet weeks of high summer and sits nearer $2,000 for much of the year, and the Garden View Suite I'd book is closer to $3,000. In cherry-blossom season and over New Year, even the entry rooms can pass $5,000.

A typical night at the Four Seasons is about $1,050, starting around $800 in the quiet weeks and running past $1,600 in cherry-blossom season. So on most dates you're paying roughly half what the Aman charges for the same palace view, and about $1,000 a night stays in your pocket.

Which one I'd book

For most trips, I'd book the Four Seasons, three or four nights in a palace-side Deluxe room, or a corner Premier room if you want more space. It's the better all-round stay: a great bed, a great bar, better food and a warmer welcome, with the same view at a much kinder price. It's what I'd tell a first-timer, a couple or anyone planning bullet-train day trips.

Book the Aman if it's a big occasion and the room itself is the point. Two nights is the sweet spot. Ask for the Garden View Suite, take a bath every night, eat once at Musashi, and eat out in the city the rest of the time.

And if you can, do both. Start with two nights at the Aman for the room, the bath and that lobby, then walk 300 metres down the road to the Four Seasons for the rest of your trip. It's the best way I know to stay in Tokyo.

And if neither is quite right, the Bulgari Hotel Tokyo by Tokyo Station has more buzz, and the Palace Hotel Tokyo looks over the same gardens for about $650 a night. Every hotel I've reviewed in the city is on my Japan page.