Sumiyoshiya

An 1869 wooden inn beside Nozawa's boiling Ogama springs — stained-glass baths, near-perfect scores for its local cooking, and water so hot you'll need to go slowly

Sumiyoshiya was founded in 1869 next to the Ogama, the boiling springs where Nozawa villagers cook vegetables, and today takes only about ten groups a night across a wooden main building and a newer annex. Japanese guests rate it extraordinarily highly — 4.90 across 130 reviews on one major site, with a perfect 5.0 for dinner, and 4.91 for food and 4.93 for service on another. The cooking is the draw: seasonal kaiseki built around 'torimawashi-bachi' shared bowls of local dishes, beef grilled on a hoe, charcoal-grilled iwana and Nozawa rice, served in private dining rooms or an 1895 storehouse. The bathhouse, lit by stained glass introduced by a former okami, is fed by the inn's own 90°C springs, cooled by air rather than water — and it is hot: guests describe it as 'just hot', say the rule is ten scoops of water over yourself first, and one found the outdoor bath 'abnormally hot' on a day the temperature control failed. The criticisms: stairs and long corridors that are hard on older guests (no lift, all rooms upstairs), a small bath with few showers, a cramped car park, dinner service that can run two hours, and prices that have climbed with overseas demand — from about ¥22,000 per person in 2023 to over ¥30,000 in 2025–26.