Shibu Onsen Tamakyu Ryokan

A family-run, eight-room Showa-era inn where the family's third generation cooks a playful Japanese-Western dinner that Japanese guests rate 5.0, with two small free-flowing cypress baths and Shibu's nine public baths on the doorstep — but rooms have no bath, the cheaper ones no toilet, and the old wooden building is steep and thin-walled

Tamakyu is a small, old wooden ryokan in the middle of Shibu Onsen's stone-paved lanes, run by one family: the owner has spent 70 years in Shibu, the okami arranges the flowers, and the family's third generation heads the kitchen. The official site lists eight tatami rooms. The draw is the food. Dinner arrives one dish at a time — Nozawana oyaki steamed in a bamboo basket, Shinshu salmon and Saku carp sashimi, eel steamed under Matsushiro yam, corn cream stew baked under pastry, Kuroge wagyu steak — with rice and vegetables from the okami's family farm. Japanese guests rate it 4.8 across 416 reviews on Jalan (dinner 5.0, breakfast 5.0, baths 4.5, rooms 4.5) and 4.78 across 629 on Rakuten Travel (service 4.89, facilities 4.18). We found no first-hand blog of a stay from 2022 or later, so most recent evidence comes from booking-site reviews, backed by two detailed Tabelog stay write-ups from October 2024 and October 2025. An August 2026 guest who has visited Shibu every summer for more than 20 years called the food the best in town. The two indoor baths are 100% free-flowing hot spring with no added water, and they run very hot. Complaints are about the building: neighbours' footsteps and voices and a cramped toilet with the sink inside (September 2023), scarily steep stairs and a hard drive in (November 2024), a third-floor room that felt like it swayed and no bed rooms available (October 2025), and one of the two baths being small (November 2026). Two-meal rates run about ¥16,500–21,450 per person for two sharing, tax included.