Seryo
B · 7.2 / 10right inn, right place
The only luxury ryokan in Ohara, thirty minutes by car from Kyoto, and really a one-room inn, because you need to book the Sakura no Ma with its open-air onsen bath or you are staying in an ordinary inn. You stay for the setting, with temples on foot and the Kurama–Kibune trail nearby, while the food is good but not gourmet and the service standard. KI-NRT gave it five stars and would recommend it for the Ohara tour more than as a trip to return for.
Scores
Food 3.5 / 5
The food is good, and the kitchen leans on the local produce that many of Kyoto's finer restaurants (Kitcho among them) buy from Ohara. The dish KI-NRT remembers is the local Jidori chicken, steamed (an unusual method he has doubts about) and done amazingly well. He puts the food short of the top kitchens in Hakone or Kaga Onsen. Breakfast is a spartan affair, thin on variety and quantity, so if you are hungry be ready to eat plenty of rice.
Bath 4 / 5
Only one room has its own hot-spring bath, the Sakura no Ma Japanese Suite with open-air bath, and KI-NRT calls that bath pure bliss and recommends you snag the room quickly if it is available. For the purposes of the thread the inn only counts as luxury if you are in that room, because there is no onsen anywhere else.
Service 3.5 / 5
Service is typical ryokan service, courteous and helpful, and KI-NRT found the comfort and service match what this small family-run inn charges. Meal times are a bit inflexible, dinner strictly at 6PM and breakfast at 8AM, but when he said they might skip breakfast for an early start on the Kurama hike, the staff offered 7:30 instead, which he found a surprisingly gracious gesture for a small ryokan with a rigid schedule.
Room 3.5 / 5
The Sakura no Ma Japanese Suite with open-air bath is the best room in the house and the one to book, though KI-NRT notes it is not really a suite. It is fresh and clean and reasonably spacious (not gargantuan by luxury ryokan standards, and he would gladly have paid more for a higher category if one existed), well appointed with toiletries, yukata, free WiFi and even a free minibar, and a nice room to spend your down time in.
Place 4.5 / 5
Seryo sits atop a small mountain in Ohara, a rural farmland area thirty minutes by car from Kyoto, with impressive views over the valley below. Sanzen-in is right next door, and Jikko-in, Hosen-in and Shorin-in are a few minutes' walk away, all worth visiting. Kurama and Kibune are about 15 minutes by car, and the hike between them through Kurama-dera's grounds is what brought KI-NRT here, and he calls it one of the best side trips from Kyoto.
Getting there
- Kyoto — ~1h, 0 transfers (estimated). ~1 hr by bus from Kyoto Stn to Ohara, then short walk to Seryo.
- Osaka — ~1h35, 1 transfer (estimated). Osaka to Kyoto ~30 min, then ~1 hr bus to Ohara.
Sources
FlyerTalk review #1 · TripAdvisor 5★ (October 2020) · #439 (thread mentions)