Minshuku Ryokan Kawai

The hosts looked after us so warmly that we left feeling rested and ready for the next leg of our journey. The hotel was delightful and clean, in a beautiful spot on the edge of the Japanese Alps. Dinner and breakfast were amazing, with the best of home cooking made from local ingredients.

The private radium hot spring was another highlight. We soaked three times, and I was amazed by how much my son's skin improved. I’d like to return in another season. I was looking for a weekend getaway when a place an acquaintance had praised highly happened to have a vacancy, so I booked. They only take one or two guests a day and put a lot of care into the cuisine. The owner is a certified sommelier and paired drinks beautifully with the game. The combinations were exquisite. Everything was delicious: mitten crab, seared venison, duck, sweetfish, and even sweetfish with milt. The shiitake mushroom soup smelled so good I thought it was matsutake. We had a 2017 Koshu wine that they said was rare, and it was incredibly tasty. I couldn't find it anywhere online.

The owner is a certified sommelier, and even just listening to him makes the visit worthwhile. The owner's eye for detail and the landlady's attentive service make it easy to see why so many guests return. They only take two groups per day, so the stay feels like having a villa to yourself, with cuisine from a Michelin-star chef. Everything is taken care of, and I’d recommend this wonderful inn before it becomes a hidden spot that’s difficult to book.

We came for the long-awaited kaiseki meal centered on wild sweetfish, a mountain delicacy, and had a relaxing stay in a quiet mountain village. My best friend and I soaked for a long time, then enjoyed the overnight stay with two meals for 26,000 yen. The meal began with deep-fried young wild sweetfish, followed by matsutake mushroom and burdock peperoncino, Yado Kawai's signature natural young sweetfish Nanbanzuke, and low-temperature roasted and seared premium wild venison. We also had salt-grilled wild sweetfish and sweetfish dengaku, fried young wild sweetfish, and Kawai specialty teppanyaki duck. Wild sweetfish roe rice came with a pot of domestic matsutake steamed in an earthenware pot, homemade pickles, and homemade Japanese dessert. The pairings included a rare 30-year-aged Burgundy white wine from 1996, 10-year-old sake, German Romanée-Conti: Bernhard Koch Pinot Noir Cuvée, by Chie Sakata 2022, and Daruma Masamune 40-Year Aged Sake. The owner, a senior sommelier, chose excellent wines. A local ayu fishing expert stopped by on his way back from a catch. Like deep-sea tuna, the fish are kept in a flash freezer at -60°C, so we could sample ayu at different stages: juveniles, young fish, adults, and roe-bearing fish. It was a fantastic experience. I came for the ayu-focused meal, but breakfast the next day was wild-caught amago trout, which even locals rarely eat. Amago trout are known for their fishy taste, so the innards are removed from under the mouth. That gave it a rich flavor, completely different from ayu. Update: December 2025. I returned with the same close friend for the hinoki wild boar hot pot kaiseki course. It was 22,000 yen including tax for one night and two meals. The course had shiitake mushrooms and stir-fried burdock, young sweetfish ajillo, wild-caught young sweetfish Nanbanzuke, and wild venison cooked at low temperature with ginger salt. We had wild sweetfish with roe, both male and female, then deep-fried mountain foods including chestnuts, bulbs, and ginkgo nuts. The main dish was wild boar hot pot with special dashi. Rice was seasoned with wild-caught male sweetfish with milt and female sweetfish with roe. There were homemade pickles and turnip, then homemade Japanese-style Mont Blanc for dessert. The bread served with the hot pot was from Donq, which I brought as a gift. It was delicious dipped in the soup.