Kamisuwa Onsen Nunohan

The century-old inn where Suwa's first drilled hot spring was struck in 1920, known for award-winning kaiseki in private garden dining rooms and summer fireworks launched right in front — but the baths are recirculated, small outdoors and have no lake view, and low-floor 'lake view' rooms see the lake through trees

Nunohan traces its name to Nunoya Hansuke, a kimono shop opened in Suwa in 1848. In 1920 the third-generation Hansuke drilled what the inn calls Suwa's first bored hot spring and opened Nunohan Bessō on the lakeshore; the lakeside onsen town grew up around it. The tanka poet Saitō Mokichi, first invited in 1913 by the Suwa-born poet Shimaki Akahiko, made it a regular Suwa base, and the inn lists Dazai Osamu, Shimazaki Tōson and Matsumoto Seichō among later guests. Today it has about 35 rooms: 24 tatami rooms in the lake-side main building and 12 renovated rooms with two beds in a town-side annex, around a garden. Its draw is the food. It has won the cuisine category of the 'Japan's 100 Best Hotels and Ryokan as chosen by professionals' list every year since 2011, and the better plans are served in 17 private dining rooms on the garden. Japanese guests rate it 4.7 across 820 reviews on one major site (dinner 4.8) and 4.54 across 1,268 on another (dinner 4.64, baths 4.47). Most recent evidence comes from these booking-site reviews; the two independent blogs describe stays in 2023 and June 2024. Reviewers praise plates served at the right temperature, wagyu soy-milk shabu-shabu, polite staff and watching the nightly summer fireworks from lake-side rooms. The catches: a booking site lists the baths as watered down, heated and recirculated, and a July 2026 guest smelled chlorine; the outdoor tubs are small and there's no lake view from the baths; a 2024 blogger's second-floor 'lake view' room saw the lake through a wall and street trees; and in 2025–2026 guests mentioned long walks through a confusing layout, a broken door lock and uneven front-desk service. Two-meal plans run about ¥19,000–30,000+ per person.