Aman Tokyo has the most beautiful hotel room in Tokyo, and a bath with a view I still think about, but that's mostly what you're buying. The food is good without being memorable, the service is very good but not quite legendary, and the rates have roughly doubled in a few years. I'd book two nights for the room…then move to the Four Seasons down the road. See pictures ↓
Aman Tokyo sits at the top of the Otemachi Tower, right next to the Imperial Palace gardens and a few minutes' walk from Tokyo Station. It opened in 2014 as Aman's first city hotel, it has just 84 rooms across the top six floors, and for a lot of very well-travelled people it's still THE hotel in Tokyo. Aman fans (and there are many) talk about it the way other people talk about their favourite restaurant.
So I came with very high expectations. I'd seen that lobby in a hundred photos, and everyone told me the rooms were the best in the city. The one warning I kept hearing was about the price, which has gone up and up since it opened.
And it has. The entry suites start at around $1,400 a night in the quiet weeks of high summer and sit nearer $2,000 for much of the year. The room I'd book is usually closer to $3,000, and in cherry-blossom season and over New Year even the entry rooms can pass $5,000. At those prices it has to be close to perfect. Parts of it are.
Things I Loved about Aman Tokyo
The lobby.
It's one of the great hotel rooms of the world, and photos don't do it justice. You come in at street level past a little forest of oak and ginkgo, ride a lift to the 33rd floor, and the doors open onto a ceiling of washi paper nearly 30 metres above you. It's like standing inside a giant paper lantern. In the middle there's a still pool of water, two little rock gardens and a huge seasonal ikebana arrangement, and in the evening someone plays a traditional Japanese instrument to welcome the night. Then everything goes very quiet.
You check in sitting down, with a glass of green tea and a cold towel, while someone takes your bags up. I've been to a lot of hotel lobbies. I've never walked into one and just stopped like that.
The room.
Honestly, the rooms are what you're paying for, and I don't think any hotel in Tokyo beats them. They're all called suites now, and even the smallest is 71 square metres, which is enormous for Tokyo. Ours was on a high floor looking west over the palace gardens, and it's all pale wood and sliding washi screens, with a long window seat running the width of the glass. The room was spotless…not a mark or a scratch anywhere.
The details are lovely. The key card comes in a little leather holder that's yours to keep. The TV is hidden in a tabletop and only rises when you want it, so nothing ever blocks the view. There's a Balmuda speaker with a glowing little filament inside, and the non-alcoholic minibar is free (the Aman pressed juices are REALLY good). Our welcome gift was ten perfect red strawberries, so fragrant I could smell them from the door. They tasted even better than they looked, and in spring Japanese strawberries are the best in the world.
The bath.
This is the best thing about staying here. Every room has a deep stone furo tub set right against the window, and there's a little card that walks you through the Japanese bathing ritual, plus cypress bath salts that smell woody and wonderful. A bath at night with the whole city lit up below you is the thing I still think about. I took one every single night. The bathroom also has two basins, a rain shower and a Toto toilet with a heated seat, and the floors are heated too.
Turndown was lovely and very Aman. They dim everything except one spotlight over the bed, and one night they left a little wooden box of kuromoji toothpicks with "a thousand gold coins" brushed on it in Japanese ink, for good luck.
My one tip on rooms…get the view right. I'd book the Garden View Suite, which looks west over the Imperial Palace gardens to the Shinjuku skyline, with Mount Fuji behind it on a clear morning. The Deluxe Suite is the same size and sold on its sunset skyline, and I'd pay the difference for the palace. I'd skip the east-facing Tokyo Suite, even though it's a touch bigger, because it looks across at neighbouring towers and a building site, and the sunrise is fierce.
The pool and spa.
The pool is 30 metres long, lined in black basalt, with a wall of glass on one side and low Japanese-style loungers on the floor, softly lit. It's rarely busy, and an attendant brings you cold towels and water. Go after dark, when the city is lit up beside you. It's one of the most beautiful hotel pools anywhere.
The spa is the biggest of any hotel in Tokyo, over two floors, with hot Japanese baths in the changing rooms (single-sex, and you go in nude). It isn't a natural hot spring, but it doesn't matter. I tried a Japanese acupuncture treatment, which I thought was just for my face. The needles went in almost everywhere, my hands were sweating, and I walked out feeling loose and warm and about ten years younger. It's about ¥63,000 (roughly $400) for an hour, so it's a splurge. Afterwards they bring strawberries and a sweet little cup of soju.
The send-off.
The welcome and the goodbye are where Aman shines. On the day we left, someone took us to Tokyo Station in the house car (a Lexus with little iPads in the back), carried our bags through the station and walked us all the way to our seats on the bullet train. In a station that size, that gesture is worth a great deal.
The free extras.
The staff are good at the practical things. Mention a morning run and you're handed a little map of the loop around the Imperial Palace, almost exactly five kilometres and a short walk from the door. A rickshaw ride around the neighbourhood, a guided walk to the palace gates and a daily yoga or Pilates class are all free, but places are few, so ask on the day you arrive. The house car will also run you anywhere within about ten minutes.
Musashi and Arva's best dishes.
The table I'd book is Musashi by Aman, the sushi counter. The chef grows his own rice in Yamanashi and makes the ceramics you eat from, and it's a serious omakase without the usual fight for a reservation. It's closed on Sundays and Mondays and doesn't take children under 13. At Arva, the Italian restaurant, order the signature agnolotti (soft ricotta bursts out when you bite) and finish with the elderflower sorbet, which is excellent.
Afternoon tea.
Afternoon tea in The Lounge is popular with Tokyo locals, and it's a lovely way to see the lobby in daylight if you're not staying. Reserve it, because it fills up.
Things That Could Be Better
The food is good, not great.
Everything we ate was good and beautifully plated, and the settings are lovely. But at these rates I hoped for something more memorable. At Arva, apart from the agnolotti and the dessert, nothing made me sit up. The Yamanashi chicken was nicely crisp but a bit mild, and the portions are small for the prices (one lobster course alone is over $100). I'd book one dinner at Arva and one at Musashi, and eat out in the city the rest of the time.
Breakfast at Arva comes from a menu and it's slow, so allow 40 minutes and don't book an early tour straight after. Order the Japanese set, which is beautifully made and the best thing the kitchen does. The Western dishes are ordinary, and I've had a better eggs Benedict in far cheaper hotels. Down in the basement, the Aman pâtisserie is beautiful to look at, but my croissant was soft and spongy, not crisp. Lunch at The Café by Aman, in the little forest at the foot of the tower, is a gorgeous setting for a pretty basic cheese board, and our water glasses sat empty for a long time.
A few service lapses.
Most of the time the service is very good. By day two everyone knew our names, room-service breakfast arrived at 7:00 on the dot, and when I asked for cherry blossom in the room one evening, a beautiful branch was arranged on our table by turndown. But for an Aman, there were more slips than I expected. I was asked for my room number more than once at dinner, and stopped at the ground-floor entrance to explain myself when I was plainly a guest. Near closing time at Arva, they started shutting the room around us and left me with an empty teacup. And there's no messaging, so it's always the phone.
The concierge is slow to answer emails before you arrive and can't conjure seats at the famous sushi counters, so tell them the kind of meal you want and let them choose. The rules are firm, too…if you need a late check-out, arrange it before you arrive.
The bed.
For a room this beautiful, the bed was a surprise. Ours felt like two twins pushed together, and the mattress is on the thin, firm side. The room gets beautifully cold and completely dark, which helps, but I wanted a more luxurious bed at these prices.
Small things that feel cheap.
In a room this beautiful, you notice the few things that don't match…the thin, hollow minibar door, a Nespresso machine packed away in a cupboard that you have to set up yourself, and a plastic cover on the room-service plate. The rooms date from 2014, so they're beautifully kept but not new, and the minimalism can feel a little austere after a few days.
The neighbourhood.
Otemachi is the banking district. It's wonderfully connected, with five subway lines under the building and Tokyo Station a few minutes' walk away, but the streets are empty at night and at weekends, and you'll take a taxi to most dinners. However beautiful it is, you're staying at the top of an office tower. And the public spaces can get busy…there's no rooftop, no real library, and the lounge fills up at tea time.
Aman or Four Seasons?
This is the comparison that matters, and it's an easy one for me.
The Four Seasons at Otemachi is a few minutes' walk away, it has the same palace view, and it's often half the price. The rooms aren't as beautiful, and it doesn't have that lobby or that bath. But it's much easier on the wallet, and for most trips it's simply the smarter way to stay in this part of Tokyo.
So my advice is to do both. Book the Aman for two nights, for the room and the bath, at the start or end of your trip. Then move down the road to the Four Seasons for the rest of it.
For the full side-by-sides, see my comparisons: Aman Tokyo vs Four Seasons Otemachi and Bulgari Tokyo vs Aman Tokyo.
Overall
I think Aman Tokyo suits couples and design lovers who want a silent, beautiful room to come back to after a day in Tokyo, ideally for two or three nights. It's the wrong pick if you want a lively neighbourhood outside the door, or if you're watching the budget at all.
If you'd like a bit more buzz with your luxury, I'd book the Bulgari Hotel Tokyo. For the same palace view at about half the price, the Four Seasons at Otemachi. And for something more traditionally Japanese, with shoes off at the door and a hot spring bath on the roof, Hoshinoya Tokyo is five minutes' walk away.
So here's my bottom line. I gave it 7.9 out of 10. The room and the bath are the best things about it, the price is the worst, and it's the most beautiful hotel room in Tokyo…I just wouldn't stay longer than two nights at these rates.
If you're booking it
Stay two or three nights, and book the Garden View Suite for the palace and, on a clear morning, Fuji. Choose a rate that includes breakfast, and order the Japanese set. Book Musashi before you arrive (not Sunday or Monday), and ask about the free rickshaw ride and the palace walk on your first afternoon. The cheapest weeks are in high summer, when an entry suite can drop to about $1,400. In cherry-blossom season and over Christmas and New Year, expect to pay $5,000 or more. Haneda is about 30 minutes by car.
More on the area: Japan guide.