November 2026
Park Hyatt Kyoto vs Park Hyatt Tokyo: Which Property Is Better?
If you're splurging on one Park Hyatt in Japan, make it Kyoto, where the Yasaka Pagoda sits in your window and Higashiyama's old stone lanes start at the front door. Tokyo has the better bar and a pool, and it usually costs a bit less, but its rooms came back from the renovation so bland that I'd only go there for a drink.
Better overall hotel: Park Hyatt Kyoto
The first morning in Kyoto I pulled the curtains back and the Yasaka Pagoda was right there over the tiled rooftops, and I just stood at the glass for a while. That's the Park Hyatt Kyoto…70 rooms stepped up the hillside at the bottom of Ninenzaka, in the part of Kyoto everyone pictures. The Park Hyatt Tokyo reopened in December 2025 after nineteen months of work, and I walked into our suite there hoping for a bit of Lost in Translation's smoky glamour and found beige. If I could spend Park Hyatt money only once on a Japan trip, it would go on Kyoto.
The only thing that would flip it for me is the film. If that's why you're going, and you'll be in the New York Bar every night anyway, sleep in the Tokyo one. Even then, I'd be tempted to stay somewhere else in Tokyo and just go up for the jazz, since the bar is open to everyone.
Better rooms: Park Hyatt Kyoto
Kyoto's room is the one I'd happily go back to. It's pale wood and bare walls under a sloping ceiling, so your eye goes straight to the window, and the soundproofing is so good the hillside might as well be empty. Tokyo's rooms are bigger (a Deluxe is 55 square metres, against about 45 in Kyoto), and the curtains open by themselves when you walk in. But our suite was taupe and black lacquer with a long leather headboard, and if you'd led me in blindfolded I could have been in a smart business hotel anywhere. Whichever you pick, the view is what you're paying for… in Kyoto a high View room looking straight at the pagoda, and in Tokyo a high floor on the Shinjuku side.
Better bathroom: Park Hyatt Kyoto
Kyoto's deep tub was the first thing I headed for after a day of hills, in a grey granite bathroom with Le Labo's Santal 33 sitting in a carved box. Tokyo's is long and calm in sand-coloured stone, with Aesop by the taps and a deep tub under a big framed painting. It's nice… nice the way plenty of good hotel bathrooms are nice, and I wanted more from a Park Hyatt.
Better service: Park Hyatt Kyoto
The Kyoto staff knew our names, and where we'd been the day before, by the second morning. We'd mentioned our anniversary when we booked, and a bottle of Ruinart turned up with a little chocolate pagoda. Tokyo runs like a smart 171-room tower hotel. Everyone was good at their job and the concierge found us everything we asked for, but nobody learned our names.
Better bar: Park Hyatt Tokyo
I'd go back to the New York Bar for the music alone. It's up on the 52nd floor, with a singer and band out front and Shinjuku lit to the horizon behind them, and I sat there with a Manhattan (three cherries, very serious) not wanting to leave. It's the best room in either hotel. They don't take reservations, so get the concierge to put you on the guest list. Kohaku in Kyoto looks straight at the pagoda and serves its martini with popcorn on the side, but it has only about ten seats, so book it at the same time as your room.
Better food: Park Hyatt Kyoto
I'd plan my Kyoto mornings around the Japanese breakfast. It comes from Kyoyamato, the old kaiseki house on the same grounds, with miso-marinated fish and a row of tiny dishes, and you wait for the flame under your rice pot to go out before you eat. Order it the night before, because it sells out. Dinner at Yasaka, wagyu off the teppanyaki with the pagoda behind the chef, was one of my favourite dinners in Kyoto. In Tokyo our best meal was Kozue (get the clay-pot rice at the end), but breakfast at Girandole looked lovely and tasted ordinary, apart from the pastries.
Better pool and spa: Park Hyatt Tokyo
Tokyo's spa surprised me. Marble baths with strong jets, saunas and a cold plunge, and I'd happily give it a whole afternoon (most hotel guests pay to use it). The 20-metre pool sits under a glass pyramid on the 47th floor, lovely in afternoon light if a bit gym-like up close. Kyoto doesn't have a pool. There's a small bathhouse instead, with a hot bath, a cold plunge and a sauna, and I was grateful for it after the hills, but squeeze five people in and it's FULL.
Better location: Park Hyatt Kyoto
Kyoto puts you inside the old city. We were up at Kiyomizu-dera before the gates opened, and coming back from dinner in Gion the only sound was our own footsteps on the stones. The Tokyo tower stands among the office blocks of Nishi-Shinjuku, 10 to 15 minutes' walk from Shinjuku Station, and the streets around it go dead at night and at weekends. The view from the top is wonderful, but we ended up in a lot of taxis.
Better value: Park Hyatt Kyoto
Neither is good value, and Kyoto usually costs more, especially in cherry-blossom season and when the maples turn in November. But in Kyoto you're buying an address and a window you can't get anywhere else. In Tokyo the best part of the hotel is a bar anyone can walk into for a drink and the cover charge. For about what the Park Hyatt Tokyo costs, I'd sleep at the Four Seasons at Otemachi, with the Imperial Palace gardens outside the window. My other reviews in both cities live on my Japan page.