Conrad Tokyo is all about the window. From the bay side you look straight down on the Hamarikyu Gardens and out across Tokyo Bay, and it's the best hotel view in this part of the city. Breakfast is excellent, the staff are warm and the pool is a joy, but the rooms look their twenty years and the evening lounge is a scrum. At a normal rate it's one of the better deals among Tokyo's big luxury hotels, though not at cherry blossom prices. See pictures ↓
Conrad Tokyo sits on floors 28 to 37 of a glass tower in Shiodome, right above the old Hamarikyu Gardens and Tokyo Bay. It opened in 2005, and everyone who's stayed talks about the view first, which is why I booked it.
We had a Deluxe Bay View room with two beds, 48 square metres, looking down onto the gardens. A normal night here starts at around $550, which is well under what the Park Hyatt, the Mandarin Oriental or the Peninsula charge, and for that I think it's good value as long as you're on the bay side. What holds it back is the room, which hasn't changed much since 2005.
What I loved
- The view. The Hamarikyu Gardens straight below the window and the bay beyond them.
- Breakfast at Cerise, above all the lobster omelette with bisque poured over it.
- The pool, a quiet 25-metre lap pool on the 29th floor, plus hot tubs and a sauna.
- Warm, personal service from staff who knew our names.
- The location for getting around, two minutes from Shiodome Station and a walk from Ginza.
What could be better
- The room looks dated, with glossy veneer furniture, few sockets and a TV that isn't smart.
- The evening lounge is packed, needs a booked slot when the hotel is busy, and the food is average.
- Breakfast gets crowded at peak times, and the cooked dishes slow right down.
- Shiodome goes quiet at night, with not much to eat on the doorstep.
- Cherry blossom rates can go past $1,000 a night, and the room isn't good enough for that.
Arrival
A tiny door, then the bay.
The entrance at street level is easy to walk past…a small room with a red sculpture and a lift. You ride up 28 floors, the doors open, and there's Tokyo Bay filling the windows in front of you. The lobby has polished floors, a big red lacquer sculpture and thin black lines running across the walls, and it smells faintly of something light and clean.
Check-in.
Ours was quick, and someone walked us up to the room and showed us how everything works. The desk on 28 can build a queue at busy times, when there are only a couple of staff on. If you have lounge access you can check in up on 37 instead, with a cup of hot tea, and I'd do that.
The room
The window.
I pulled the curtains open and there were the Hamarikyu Gardens right under us, a big square of green with the old tidal ponds, then the bay, the Rainbow Bridge and Odaiba beyond. It was raining the morning after we arrived, and the bay went misty and grey, but the trees in the gardens stayed a bright, almost fake green. There's a long green banquette with blue cushions right against the glass, and I kept going back to it with a coffee to watch the boats cross the bay.
The room itself.
At 48 square metres it's big for Tokyo. We had two beds (twins, soft enough that I sank right in), cherry branches woven into the carpet, a round wooden table with a white leather chair, a Nespresso machine, an iron teapot with cups, and two bottles of water topped up every day. A crowned rubber duck was waiting for us (you can buy him in the gift shop downstairs). At turndown they lay out embroidered pyjamas and put soft music on the speakers, which I loved.
But it's dated.
The furniture is glossy wood veneer that looks very 2005, there are few universal sockets, and the TV isn't a smart one. Nothing is worn, and the room was spotless. It looks like a business hotel room from twenty years ago, with a fabulous window. If you've come from the Bulgari or the Four Seasons at Otemachi, you'll notice.
The bathroom
The tub with a view.
The bathroom sits behind a glass wall, with a deep freestanding tub right beside it, so you can lie in the bath and look across the room to the bay. There's a motorised blind for when you want privacy (handy with two beds and two people). There's a round lit mirror over two sinks, a rain shower in its own stall, and a Japanese toilet whose lid lifts as you walk in. The toiletries are Byredo Mojave Ghost in big pump bottles, and the whole bathroom smelled of it, smoky and woody. I'm a bit obsessed with it now.
What I'd change.
The black tiles and fittings show their age like the rest of the room, and the sinks are shallow, so the taps splash water everywhere. None of it spoiled a bath for me.
Breakfast
Cerise.
Breakfast is at Cerise on the 28th floor, with big windows over the gardens. It's a buffet plus one dish each from a menu, and the menu is where the fun is. Get the lobster omelette, which comes with lobster bisque poured over it. The French toast "muffin" and the matcha pancake are both lovely too. From the buffet I went Japanese every morning: black cod grilled with miso, smoked salmon, shirasu with grated daikon, an onsen egg in broth. There's a cold soba bar, a taco station (yes, really) and the best apple juice I had in Japan.
Go early or late.
In the middle of the morning it gets crowded, and the cooked dishes take a long time to come. When it's full they send people to eat in China Blue or Kazahana instead, and you may lose your window table. Go before 7 or after 9:30 and it's calm.
The lounge
Up on 37.
We had lounge access on this stay through Hilton status. The Executive Lounge is two rooms split by a corridor, one looking over the city and one over the bay, with a big fireplace. Sit on the bay side, which is quieter and has the better view. The lounge breakfast is smaller than Cerise's, but it has one thing Cerise doesn't, sea urchin scrambled eggs, and they were the best thing I ate in the hotel.
The evenings are the problem.
By 7pm it's packed, and when the hotel is busy you have to book a slot for evening drinks. The food is just okay: a few small pieces of abalone, some shrimp, sashimi on grated yam and a couple of hot dishes, nothing you'd call dinner. The whisky shelf is excellent, though, so I had a Japanese whisky by the window and went out to eat.
Restaurants and the bar
TwentyEight.
The bar is across from check-in on the 28th floor. Most evenings there's live piano, and the music gets softer as the night goes on. We took a candlelit table by the window and watched the bay go dark, and it's one of my favourite memories of the trip. The drinks are priced for the view. Late at night they do a wagyu sando, and you should order it.
The restaurants.
Collage does modern French, at dinner from Wednesday to Sunday. China Blue is the Chinese restaurant, all blue velvet booths and a long wine cellar. Kazahana is Japanese, with sushi, kaiseki and teppanyaki over the gardens. I'd walk to Ginza most nights, which is 15 minutes away and has some of the best food in the world.
Pool and spa
The pool.
Mizuki Spa & Fitness is on the 29th floor, one up from the lobby. The pool is a 25-metre lap pool with small trees along one side and the skyline in the windows, and the water is warm. I went down at 6:30 one morning and had it almost to myself. Swim caps are compulsory (they lend you one), and there are adults-only hours. The gym looks down over the pool and is open 24 hours.
The spa.
The changing rooms are the best bit, with hot tubs, a sauna, a steam room and onsen-style washing stalls where you sit on a little stool and scrub down. After a massage they settle you in a quiet room under a weighted blanket. It isn't the newest spa in Tokyo and the pool is narrow, but I went every single day.
Service
Warm, and it remembers you.
The staff were greeting us by name within a day, and the doormen had umbrellas ready when it rained. When we sent our bags on to Osaka, someone came up to the room to fill in the forms and measure the cases, which saved us a lot of hassle. The concierge is very good too. Email them before you arrive and they'll book the hard-to-get restaurants, usually within a day.
It feels international.
It doesn't have the ceremony of the Palace or the Aman. The staff here are warm and quick, and if you're after that formal, very Japanese kind of hospitality, you won't find it. I didn't mind at all.
Location
Right on top of the trains.
Shiodome Station (the Oedo line, and the Yurikamome out to Odaiba) is about two minutes away, and Shimbashi, with the JR and Ginza lines, is under ten minutes through an underground walkway. Ginza is 10 to 15 minutes on foot, and the Tsukiji outer market is about the same. Haneda is 25 to 30 minutes by car, and the Airport Limousine Bus stops at the hotel.
But it's an office district.
Shiodome is all towers and raised walkways, and once the offices empty it goes really quiet. There isn't much to eat right on the doorstep. The Hamarikyu Gardens are a few minutes' walk, though, and a slow loop round the ponds one morning was a highlight of the trip.
Conrad or Park Hyatt?
These are the two big Tokyo hotels people book on points, and they feel nothing alike. The Park Hyatt is up in Shinjuku, it reopened in December 2025 after a long renovation, and it has the New York Bar.
I'd pick the Conrad. The view and the breakfast are better, the hot tubs and sauna come with the room, you're on the subway, and it usually costs about half as much. The Park Hyatt's rooms are newer, but I found them bland, and the Conrad's are bland in an older way, so on the room I'd call it a draw. Sleep at the Conrad and go up to the New York Bar one night for a drink.
Is it worth it?
Yes, at a normal price. From around $550 you get a big room (ask for the bay side), a breakfast I'd happily come back for, a proper pool and very kind staff, and that's less than the Park Hyatt, the Mandarin Oriental or the Peninsula. In cherry blossom season, when the rate goes past $1,000, I don't think it is, because the room just isn't good enough for that.
It suits couples and families who want space and a view, Hilton Honors members, and anyone who wants the subway at the door with Ginza a walk away. Skip it if you want a hotel that feels very Japanese, the newest room in town, or a lively street outside. For a newer room I'd book the Four Seasons at Otemachi, and for the full Japanese experience the Palace Hotel. If you're going on to Osaka, the Conrad Osaka is the newer of the two.
I gave it 7.9 out of 10. I'd have gone higher if the room had been redone.
If you're booking it
Book a Bay View room (the standard rooms are all 48 square metres) and ask for a high floor, because lower down the bay view is mostly other towers. City View rooms look at offices. If you want the lounge, book an Executive room on floors 35 to 37, which includes it; the 72-square-metre Executive Suite is the one for a long stay or a family. Choose a rate that includes breakfast. Book your evening lounge slot when you check in, and email the concierge about restaurants a couple of weeks before you arrive. From Haneda, take a taxi or the Airport Limousine Bus, which stops at the door. Late March brings cherry blossom to the Hamarikyu Gardens below, if you can stomach the rate.
More on the area: Japan guide.