Muni Kyoto

Muni Kyoto is named after the calligraphy in its lobby: two characters by Soya Inada, 無二, read muni and meaning without a second. At the entrance the ceramicist Masanobu Ando has made a suikinkutsu, a vessel buried in the ground so that water dripping into it rings like a bell, and the garden keeps the water moving, over grey stone set on edge and down a waterfall. Ground-floor rooms open onto it; upstairs, the balcony rooms look over the Togetsukyo Bridge and the Katsura River to Arashiyama's wooded hills. Every room is over 50 square metres of pale wood, hung with Kineta Kunimatsu's Horizon, a second horizon for anyone who tires of the first. Chagall's The Magician has the dining room, with wall space kept for a guest artist, a different big name every six months. Even a hotel named for having no equal makes room for one.

Recommended for grown-ups who want Arashiyama on foot and a Michelin star at dinner without leaving the building. Children are welcome, under-13s stay free in their parents' bedding and a two-bedroom duplex gives a family some room, but the evening's business is dinner. At Muni Alain Ducasse, Alessandro Guardiani brings Ducasse's French technique to Kyoto ingredients over ten to thirteen courses, each after one of the twenty-four solar terms of the traditional Japanese calendar. A term lasts fifteen days, and so does the menu. Tenryu-ji and the Bamboo Grove are both a walk away, but the best start to a day is next door: the front desk will arrange entry to the Fukuda Art Museum half an hour before the public, for Japanese painting from the Edo period on and a head start on the rest of Arashiyama.