Akan Tsuruga Besso Hinanoza
B · 7.8 / 10right inn, right place
A 25-room ryokan that is the top (and probably only) luxury option on Lake Akan, with terrific Hokkaido kaiseki, a free-flowing onsen bath in every room and an interesting corner of eastern Hokkaido with Ainu culture and marimo on the doorstep. Service is the weak point, corporate and unpolished on both stays in the thread. KI-NRT called it a great, memorable stay, though two years later he summed it up as really nice, with nothing that knocked their socks off.
Scores
Food 4.5 / 5
The kaiseki is terrific, and the kitchen does a wonderful job with Hokkaido ingredients: okra, butterbur, sweet corn and bamboo shoots, plus salmon, whelk and sea urchin. KI-NRT put the charcoal-grilled Kuroge wagyu almost at Hida and Matsusaka level, unusual for Hokkaido beef. Breakfast is equally inspiring, with never-frozen ikura so plump he had two helpings of rice heaped with it and called it sublime. A 2024 guest found the food superb.
Bath 4.5 / 5
Every one of the 25 rooms has its own onsen bath, and in the suites it sits out on the deck, free-flowing and not recirculated, which KI-NRT called perfect. There is also a communal daiyokujo, but because every room has its own bath it was empty every time he went in. A 2024 guest called the bath facilities excellent and singled out the stone sauna, where you put on a towel dress and lie on the stone on another towel.
Service 2.5 / 5
Service is the weak point on both stays. KI-NRT found it fine but formulaic and less personalized than at top ryokans, which he puts down to the inn not being family owned, and the meal servers kept having to check with the kitchen on questions he expects answered on the spot. Michaeljinnyc had it worse in 2024 and called it the worst service of his ten-plus stays, with cold, aloof local staff and foreign staff who misunderstood requests.
Room 4 / 5
Four of the 25 rooms are 110-square-metre Tokubetsu-shitsu (the Ama no Za suites), and KI-NRT's, the Hina no Za, had a living room, a tatami room and a separate bedroom in high-quality Japanese-contemporary decor, with the onsen bath on the deck and two toilets (but curiously only one sink). He thought the suite was really nice. A 2024 guest found the standard rooms spacious and well maintained, down to tower speakers and a stack of jazz CDs.
Place 3.5 / 5
Hinanoza is a nondescript seven-story building steps from the Lake Akan shore, with Ainu wood carvings through the common areas. Almost everything is a short walk away: the Ainu Kotan village with its craft shops and museum, lake cruises, forest hikes and the marimo, ball-shaped green algae. In February the frozen lake hosts a nightly festival with fireworks and Ainu dances. The town is one main street, and a 2024 guest found most of it closed.
Getting there
- Kushiro — ~1h10, 0 transfers (estimated). ~70 min by car/shuttle from Kushiro Airport to Lake Akan Onsen.
- Sapporo — ~4h30, 0 transfers (estimated). ~4.5 hr by car from Sapporo across eastern Hokkaido (most fly Sapporo-Kushiro then drive).
Sources
FlyerTalk review #146 · FlyerTalk review by Michaeljinnyc #387 · TripAdvisor 5★ (July 2023) · #602 (thread mentions)