Where is it? Tokyo's newest five-star hotel recently opened in Shiodome, an inner-city business district midway between some of the world's most expensive property, in Ginza, and the ancient Royal Hamarikyu Gardens. Located on the Tokyo Harbour waterfront, the area has direct links to the city's main expressway. The hotel is two stops from Tokyo Station, making access to Haneda and Narita airports simple.
What's it like? The Conrad chain's first venture into Japan is aimed primarily at the luxury corporate market. Overlooking the royal gardens, it occupies the top 10 floors of the 37-storey Tokyo Shiodome Building and offers 222 city- and garden-facing rooms, plus 68 suites. The rooms are larger than in most other Tokyo hotels, at a minimum 48 square metres. All include a plasma-screen television, satellite channels, DVD player and broadband internet access. Wireless telephones for use throughout the hotel are a handy touch. The bathrooms reflect the Japanese passion for bathing, with powerful rain showers and deep baths.
What's on the menu? Diners are well taken care of, with a choice of casual brasserie food through to formal dining. China Blue offers avant-garde Chinese cuisine and 3,000 international wines from a distinctive, eight-metre high, glass-walled, walk-in wine cellar. Japanese kaiseki, sushi and teppan cuisines are available at the stylish Kazahana restaurant, which has traditional tatami-mat rooms - remember to leave your shoes at the door. Top billing, however, goes to three-star Michelin chef Gordon Ramsay's first restaurant venture in Japan - a formal modern French restaurant modestly called Gordon Ramsay at Conrad Tokyo.
jp), where you can play with the latest Japanese techno-wizardry. Follow that with lunch at Chanel's so-cool-it-hurts Beige Tokyo cafe. The hotel offers a fully equipped gym and a 25-metre indoor swimming pool finished in black with sumi-e (Japanese brush painting) details. Insomniacs should venture out at 5am for a short walk to the largest fish market in the world, in Tsukiji.
Anything else we should know? There is more than a mere nod to Japanese style: traditional and modern details are incorporated into the architecture and decor, with delicate shoji screens and Japanese wood used throughout the hotel. Nobuyuki Tanaka's 3.6-metre deep red urushi (Japanese lacquer) flower sculpture, which took more than a year to complete, makes a striking feature in the elegant marble and black-lacquer lobby. Artworks throughout the hotel will take your breath away. Twenty-five of Japan's most respected artists were commis-sioned to create exclusive works and the most stunning is in the main reception: a five-metre sumi-e ink abstract painting on Japanese rice paper by 96-year-old master craftswoman Toko Shinoda.
