Kamenoi Besso
unscored · Ikyu 4.9 / 5no first-hand write-up in the thread
A 1921 lakeside estate on Lake Kinrin at the foot of Mt. Yufu, with seventeen rooms all built differently, garden-source kakenagashi in every tub and public rooms (a teahouse, a bar, a gramophone lounge) that guests keep writing about. It holds Two Michelin Keys in 2025, one of only twenty properties in Japan to do so. KI-NRT calls it 'the original luxury Yufuin inn' and has a return booked for November 2026. Ikyu's crowd (4.87 across 122 reviews) ranks it near the top of Kyushu, and dinner is the one softer note. Nobody in the thread has written a full review yet.
Scores
Food
Dinner is a kaiseki of Ōita mountain vegetables and local meat, in the room for the hanare and in the restaurant for the main building. Tuesday to Thursday there is also Jūbankan, a counter annex with wine pairings. Food is where Ikyu guests mark the inn lowest, at 4.77, and dishes arriving lukewarm is the recurring complaint.
Bath
The spring is the garden's own, and every tub runs kakenagashi from it: two shared bathhouses, three open-air baths and the tubs in all seventeen rooms, ten of them outdoors. The shared baths stay open all night, and even the main-building twins now have indoor onsen tubs. There is no sauna and no private-hire bath. Ikyu guests put the baths at 4.89.
Service
KI-NRT, who stayed years ago, calls Kamenoi the original luxury Yufuin inn and has booked a return for November 2026. Arrival is old-school, with several staff lined up at the entrance when you pull in, and Ikyu guests put service at 4.87, describing warm, unhurried attention from everyone they met. Praise for the staff is uniform across the reviews, including the ones that fault the food.
Room
The seventeen rooms are all built differently: eleven detached hanare under the trees, with dinner served in the room, and six Western-style twins in the main building with Danish furniture alongside local craft. Special Room 7, a 140 square metre two-bedroom villa, has just been renovated, and ten rooms have their own open-air bath. The cheapest twins are 36 to 45 square metres, up stairs, and take no children below junior-high age.
Place
Ten thousand tsubo of garden under 200-year-old trees beside Lake Kinrin at the foot of Mt. Yufu, begun in 1921 as a private villa. The lane outside is packed with tourists, but once you cross the small bridge the noise stops and you hear birdsong and koi in the pond. The public rooms matter as much as the garden: the Tenjōsajiki teahouse in a relocated sake warehouse and a fireside lounge with records on the gramophone each evening.
Getting there
- Fukuoka — 2h10, 0 transfers. Reverse of: Ltd Exp back toward Hakata (~2h10).
- Kagoshima — 3h10, 1 transfer. Kyushu Shinkansen Kagoshima-Chūō→Hakata (~1h20), ~4-min platform transfer, then the JR 'Yufu' Ltd Exp Hakata→Yufuin (~2h15). ~3h11 total, all-rail.
- Nagasaki — 3h, 0 transfers. Reverse of: By car (~210 km, raw ~2h25 per NAVITIME; budget ~3h): Yufuin IC → Oita Expwy → Tosu JCT → Nagasaki Expwy → Nagasaki IC (~¥5,060). Budget 3h+ in January — the Yufuin IC–Hita IC stretch (~45 km) is an official winter-tire-regulation zone (last winter: 7 days of regulation, 2 of closure); past Hita it's plains, and the Nagasaki Expwy has no regulated section at all. (Transit: Ltd Exp 'Yufu'→Hakata ~2h15 + 'Relay Kamome'/'Kamome' via Takeo, ~3.5h total, 2 changes — 2026-07 audit; rare January snow on the Kyudai line's pass.)
- Kumamoto — 2h25, 1 transfer. Reverse of: Ltd Exp 'Yufu'/'Yufuin-no-Mori' Yufuin→Kurume (~1h40, ~5/day), Shinkansen Kurume→Kumamoto (~25 min). Scenic alt: the Kyushu Ōdan bus through Kurokawa/Aso, one seat, ~4h15, 3/day. By car ~2.5h via the Yamanami Highway.
- Tokyo — 4h, 1 transfer. Fly to Yufuin: Tokyo→Haneda (~30 min), HND→Oita (OIT) ~1h30 nonstop (frequent ANA/JAL/Solaseed; 2026-07 audit vs flightsfrom/sakuratravel timetables), then a pre-booked FIXED-FARE taxi straight to the inn (~55 min, ¥18,320 incl. tolls — Oita Taxi Assoc., say '定額で') — no bus-schedule or shuttle sync. (Budget alt: airport bus→Yufuin Stn ~55 min, 6/day, ¥1,550pp + the inn shuttle — Enowa's needs reserving ≥3 days ahead.) Far saner than the ~5h45 all-rail haul.
- Kanazawa — 6h, 3 transfers. Airport bus Kanazawa→Komatsu + KMQ→Fukuoka (~1h40) into Hakata, then Ltd Exp 'Yufu'/'Yufuin-no-Mori' Hakata→Yufuin (~2h10). ~6h door-to-door. (Oita is Yufuin's own airport but has no Komatsu flight — Hakata is the gateway.)
Sources
Ikyu 4.87 / 5 · #230 · #252 · #449 · #480 · #688 · #692 · #791 (thread mentions)