Kinosaki Onsen Nishimuraya Hotel Shogetsutei

Nishimuraya's big modern sister hotel in a forest garden: warm, polished service, kaiseki or Italian-French dinners and three themed private onsen spas — but the in-room open-air baths are plain heated water, the shared baths are recirculated, and breakfast is an ordinary buffet

Shogetsutei is the annex of Nishimuraya, the Kinosaki inn founded more than 160 years ago, and shares a reservation line with its sister, Nishimuraya Honkan. Billed as a 'new style' of ryokan, it is a 98-room house set in a 50,000-tsubo forest garden at the far end of town, with a lobby lounge facing a waterfall, a summer garden pool, a fitness room, a dog hotel and a wedding chapel. Japanese guests rate it 4.68 across 136 reviews on one leading site (service 4.76, food 4.77) and 4.7 across 1,124 on another, where dinner scores 4.8 but breakfast only 4.3. Reviewers from 2022 to 2026 single out the staff — surprise birthday cakes, a forgotten item driven to the station, a room swapped on request — plus crab sashimi in season, the monthly kaiseki served in a private dining room or your room, and dinners at the in-house Italian-French restaurant Ricca. The three bookable private spas, each with a hot-spring open-air bath, bedrock sauna and living room, get some of the warmest praise. Know before you book: by the inn's own note, the open-air baths in rooms use heated plain water, not onsen; the shared baths are Kinosaki's piped supply with water added, heated and recirculated; and the Comfort Twins have only a shower. Complaints in 2024–2026 centre on a generic breakfast buffet, loud tour groups, a musty room and a crowded outdoor bath. On one booking site, two-meal plans start around ¥50,600 per person in a twin and ¥63,800 in a room with an open-air bath; matsuba crab plans run about ¥95,000–124,000.