A quiet place to stay is coming to Mt. Hiei, on the border of Kyoto and Shiga. Keihan Hotels & Resorts will open “THE THOUSAND HIEI ── Mui no Okuyama,” a 33-room Eastern retreat on Mt. Hiei, home of the UNESCO World Heritage temple Enryaku-ji, on Wednesday, March 31, 2027. Reservations opened on Tuesday, November 10, 2026 on the official website.
Two keywords for a stay on a 1,200-year-old mountain: “stillness” and “observation”
The theme of the stay is shi (止), calming the movement of the mind, and kan (観), seeing things as they are. For 1,200 years Mt. Hiei has been a place of training in search of “mui” (無為), a state free of artifice and attachment. Saicho brought Buddhism here along with continental wisdom on wellbeing, and the mountain has long enshrined Yakushi Nyorai, the Buddha of medicine, as its principal deity. Kyoto-based Mizuhoshi took part in the basic concept, aiming to carry that history and natural setting into the future through spaces and experiences rooted in Eastern thought and sensibility.
The hotel has a restaurant and bar, a rock-bed sauna, an acupuncture room, an oil treatment facility, and rooms for sutra copying and meditation.
A “yojo bath” and “yojo tea” you blend yourself, with Rohto Pharmaceutical
The stay begins at the “Chigusa Laboratory” and the “Tea Room.” In collaboration with Osaka-based Rohto Pharmaceutical, guests blend their own “yojo yu” (a bath blend) by hand in the Chigusa Laboratory, scented with herbal ingredients. The blend can be used in the Shigaraki-ware bathtub in the guest room. In the Tea Room, original “yojo cha” is brewed from a variety of herbs and Japanese-Chinese botanicals. It looks like a way to switch gears with scent and steam as soon as you arrive.
Photo: Keihan Hotels & Resorts (rendering)
“Water Garden” facing Lake Biwa, and the fire-and-fermentation “Mui no Okuyama HO-MA”
One highlight is the water terrace, the “Water Garden.” Facing Lake Biwa and merging with the Mt. Hiei landscape, it lets you float in the ultra-soft “Hie no Reisui” water.
Photo: Keihan Hotels & Resorts (rendering)
The heart of the food is the restaurant “Mui no Okuyama HO-MA,” named after “Homa,” the Sanskrit word for the fire ritual known in Japanese as goma. The head chef is 小長谷 英之, who grew up at the foot of Mt. Hiei, and the menu is supervised by Ken Sakamoto of “cenci,” a Michelin-starred restaurant in Okazaki, Kyoto. Mainly using Kyoto and Shiga ingredients nurtured by the mountain, each dish layers fermentation know-how with wood and charcoal fire. The bar “Hie Yakushudo” serves herbal liqueurs and craft spirits.
33 rooms without TVs, plus suites with tea rooms
The rooms have no TVs or other audio-visual equipment, leaving the space to the movement of leaves and the changing mountain light. The Superior Twin / Deluxe King rooms (31㎡, 26 rooms) have Shigaraki-ware bathtubs, and the Premier rooms (62㎡, 2 rooms) have two. The 131㎡ Premier Maisonette Twin (1 room) has a living room on the first floor, a bathroom on the second, and a bedroom on each floor. The suites (74–97㎡, 4 rooms, up to 4 guests) draw on Japanese architecture with earthen entryways, verandas and coffered ceilings, and every suite has its own tea room.
Photo: Keihan Hotels & Resorts (rendering)
Hotel information (planned)
- Opening: Wednesday, March 31, 2027
- Reservations: open from Tuesday, November 10, 2026 on the official website
- Address: Hieizan Ipponsugi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto
- Rooms: 33 (26 Superior/Deluxe, 3 Premier, 4 Suite), in a building with one basement floor and two floors above ground
- Facilities: restaurant “Mui no Okuyama HO-MA,” bar “Hie Yakushudo,” Tea Room, Chigusa Laboratory, “Ondo” rock-bed sauna, acupuncture room, oil treatment facility, “Water Garden” terrace, calligraphy hall, meditation room
- Age limit: 13 and over (children, including those sharing a bed, cannot be accommodated)
- Website (Japanese): https://www.keihanhotels-resorts.co.jp/the-thousand-hiei/
- Details are at the planning stage and may change. All photos are renderings.
