Kinugawa Onsen Sanraku

A polished 49-room inn where every room is 74㎡ and looks down on the Kinugawa gorge, with kaiseki served in your room or a private dining room and standout service — but the baths are shared and recirculated, every room is a smoking room, and the 1991 building shows its age

Kinugawa Onsen, the inn reminds guests, was found in the Edo period and was once reserved for daimyō and monks returning from Nikkō's shrines. Sanraku is a 49-room house built in 1991 high above the river in the middle of the town, now part of Ken Hotels & Resorts' small Sanraku brand alongside Nasu Onsen Sanraku. It's showy in an Edo-revival way: incense in the entrance, matcha and dry sweets at check-in, a phoenix painting the inn says came from Nikkō Tōshōgū. The draw is space and service: every room is 74㎡ — three tatami rooms or a Japanese-Western layout — with the gorge below, and dinner and breakfast are always in your room or a private or semi-private room, never a buffet. Japanese guests rate it 4.3 across 707 reviews on one major site (service 4.6, bath 4.1) and 4.23 across 670 on another (dinner 4.44). Travelogues from December 2022, November 2023 and March 2024 praise the rooms, private dining and marbled Tochigi wagyu; reviewers in 2025–2026 add the quick station pick-up, the free after-bath beer and pickles, and luxury toiletries on the women's side. Know before you book: the baths are recirculated with water added, there are no private baths, and no non-smoking rooms. Complaints in 2026 included a musty room, tough wagyu, salty food, dinners that came slowly or didn't match the price, broken taps in the women's bath and, in May, another guest already inside the room at check-in. Two-meal stays ran about ¥27,000–44,000 per person in 2026.