Notojima, Japan

Hitotsu Notojima

Hitotsu Notojima Photos

Style

Sushi auberge

Setting

Overlooking Nanao Bay

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A sushi auberge might sound like a novelty, but in a country where seafood and hospitality are both treated as high art, boutique hotel Hitotsu Notojima is a small-scale masterpiece. Just eight pared-back Japandi-styled bedrooms provide a less-is-more canvas, with horizon-spanning vistas of Nanao Bay as their backdrop. Culinary craft takes the foreground with super-fresh sashimi, nigiri and other locally sourced delicacies. The result is an island-spun composition any collector would covet. 

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Facilities

Photos Hitotsu Notojima facilities

Need to know

Rooms

Eight, including two suites.

Check–Out

11am, and check-in is at 3pm. Both are flexible, on request and subject to availability.

Also

Unfortunately, Hitotsu Notojima is not suitable if you have mobility issues.

Hotel closed

The hotel is currently closed every Wednesday and Thursday.

At the hotel

Free WiFi throughout. In rooms: TV, fridge, tea- and coffee-making kit, free minibar, free bottled water, bathrobes, slippers and luxury bath products.

Our favourite rooms

Bedrooms draw from the traditional ryokan style, with dark woods and tatami flooring, but with more modern, Scandi-inspired comforts. All eight have calming views over the waters of Nanao Bay, with the Tateyama mountain range beyond emerging from the mist. Suso and Koda (rooms are named after regions of Noto island) both have saunas with a private terrace, but Suso is a touch bigger and benefits from its dual-aspect corner position.

Spa

Meditative soaks await bathing belles at the spa, where you can rotate between a wood-fired herbal bath, cold plunge and an outdoor wood-fired sauna with a terrace backdropped by bay views. It's for hotel guests only but requires pre-booking (wood-fired wellness takes time to set up).

Packing tips

Packing tips Japanese hospitality is celebrated but can feel tricky to navigate. If you feel you need to brush up, there’s a section on sushi-eating in Culture Quest’s The Do’s and Don’ts of Japan guidebook.

Pet‐friendly

Hitotsu Notojima is not a pet-friendly hotel. See more pet-friendly hotels in Notojima.

Children

Hitotsu Notojima welcomes over-13s only.

Food and Drink

Photos Hitotsu Notojima food and drink

Top Table

Kitchen-front counter seats put you at the heart of the action; family tables to one side feel more laidback — but everything is geared towards the chefs and those superlative bay views.

Dress Code

Show as much respect as the sushi chefs do to the ingredients: no shorts or flip-flops here.

Hotel restaurant

Seasonal Noto seafood is the star at Aidokoro restaurant, with the sushi changing with the daily catch. Spring might bring delicate cherry salmon and small sea bream, alongside sweet red surf clam and the distinctly local gas shrimp. Later in the year, snow crab makes an appearance. It’s a strictly local and ingredient-led approach that brings authentic variety to sushi at this specialist auberge. And you can expect a similar level of craft from the skilled kitchen team. The result is a culinary portrait of the region itself.

Hotel bar

The lounge bar, where you check-in, has views over the bay and is where you can kick back with a glass of regional sake, beer or wine, as well as original cocktails and inventive non-alcoholic options. 

Last orders

The restaurant is open 6pm until 10pm, with an earlier and later slot so that anyone staying gets plenty of time at the sushi counter. Drinks are served in the lounge bar from 3pm to 10:30pm.

Room service

The nature of the prep work, presentation and eating of the dishes here means dining takes place at the sushi counter, not in your room.

Location

Photos Hitotsu Notojima location
Address
Hitotsu Notojima
Notojima Suso machi 42 4
Nanao
926-0213
Japan

Hitotsu Notojima lies on the coast of Notojima, a small island to the north of Ishikawa prefecture in the central (Chūbu) region of Honshu, the largest of Japan’s four main islands.

Planes

If your international flight arrives at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, you can take a domestic hour-long flight to Noto Satoyama Airport, which is a 50-minute drive from the hotel, or Komatsu Airport, which is an hour-and-a-half away by car. Komatsu Airport is also served by Seoul and Hong Kong.

Trains

From Tokyo, ride the Hokuriku shinkansen (bullet train) to Kanazawa, which takes between two and three hours. From there, take a limited express train to Wakuraonsen station, 10 minutes from the hotel by car. Hotel staff can arrange transfers.

Automobiles

It takes at least six or seven hours to drive to Notojima from Tokyo, or about four hours from Kyoto. If you’re on a Japanese road trip, you’ll find free private parking available at the hotel (no reservation required), with eight spaces located across the road from the entrance, two of which are equipped with electric vehicle chargers. At check-in, you can park in the drop-off area at the entrance; staff will assist with your luggage.

Worth getting out of bed for

Alongside its seafood, Notojima is known for its crafts heritage. From your base at Hitotsu Notojima, rather than aiming for specific shops or outlets, we recommend flitting from village to village, keeping your eye out for workshops and traders. One landmark of note is the Glass Art Museum, a visual feast of eye-catching architecture and sculpture-dotted grounds. And make time for a circuit of Wajima Lake, where pottery is produced and sold to upscale restaurants around the world. 

Back at the coast, Notojima has its share of beaches, with clear, sheltered waters suitable for swimming, as well as kayaking or stand-up paddleboarding. Head out on a fishing trip or take a dolphin-spotting tour in the Sea of Japan. 

Local restaurants

Extraordinary Japanese cooking can often take place behind the most ordinary of front doors; restaurants that thrive on local word of mouth alone. The joy of Notojima is discovering these unassuming eateries. Staff at Hitotsu Notojima can guide you depending on your tastes, whether you’re after soba, ramen or udon noodles, or teishoku (set meals). To switch up the sushi on offer at Hitotsu Notojima, one of the closest places to destination dining is the French-inspired Sans Souci, in the fishing village of Bagauramachi. Run by a Japanese couple who once owned a French restaurant in Tokyo, it’s known for offering an intimate, single-sitting-a-day experience, focused on seasonal ingredients from the Noto region.

Reviews

Photos Hitotsu Notojima reviews

Anonymous review

By Mr & Mrs Smith

Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this gourmet break on Noto Island and unpacked their aged sake and Wajima pottery, a full account of their sushi-filled stay will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Hitotsu Notojima in Japan… 

In Japan, sushi is an artform, with different coastal regions yielding a rich variety of flavours, many of which are worth travelling for. That’s why Hitotsu Notojima is built exclusively around this hallowed cuisine. From the view of Nanao Bay from your kitchen counter seat (a sushi chef must train for years), to the layout of the interiors and the understated, local materials used, everything here is in service to mealtimes (yes, breakfast consists of exquisite sushi, too). 

But even if raw seafood isn’t exactly your thing, there's plenty here that will quietly impress. The spa, for instance, had us at ‘wood-fired herbal bath'. Soaking up the island’s lo-fi appeal should also be on your wishlist: explore its glass-blowing museum, sign up for artisanal crafts workshops or get hooked on the traditional harbour-sides where fishermen serve up freshly caught delicacies. Returning to Hitotsu’s finessed tatami-floor bedrooms — some of which have private saunas — deftly complements Noto’s gentler-paced way of life. 

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