Shiraume (Baian) Ryokan Kyoto review

Long ago, I went to Kyoto for just a night in August. I don’t remember much about it other than it was sweaty and terrible. So, when my travel partner suggested going to Kyoto again during a trip to Japan in November, I hesitated. But he was fairly steadfast about wanting to go, citing the articles he had read about how if you go to Japan once in your life, it would be a crime to miss Kyoto . Ultimately, I am very glad he twisted my arm.

I set about looking for a ryokan and was shocked by some of the high prices (I’m looking at you, Hoshinoya!) that were out there. The Lonely Planet suggested Shiraume, and it was one of their featured listings so I shot the ryokan an email and got the loveliest, most detailed response from the proprietor, Tomoko. I had a good feeling it would be a special visit to Shiraume in Kyoto, and I wasn’t wrong.

Room review of Shiraume and Baian Kyoto

Shiraume is in an old geisha house in the Gion district of Kyoto and the rooms are quite traditional (think tatami mats and futons for sleeping) but still have modern touches like air conditioning. After all, we are talking about Kyoto, where it gets quite warm in the summer. Our room was right on the river outside, which made for a wonderful setting. The bathrooms are modern with Toto toilets and every toiletry you could ever possibly need.

The second night, we stayed at Baian, which has significantly more modern rooms. Baian is an annex property which through an alley on a parallel street in another house that was purchased by Tomoko’s family and was recently renovated. The Japanese bathtub has a high-tech system for regulating the temperature and filling the bath and the walls are fresh, still aromatic hinoki cypress. There are a couple other modern touches like a hot water kettle with a long pouring spout like the ones you use for fancy pourover coffee and a high-tech light system. The room definitely feels a bit newer and fresher. Instead of a view of the river, there is a lovely, private zen garden.

Shiraume breakfast and dinner review

While dinner at Shiraume is optional, breakfast comes with every booking, and I’m glad it did. I’ve been to about a half-dozen ryokans in Japan, and the breakfast at Shiraume was far and away the best. There wasn’t anything unusual about the offerings – grilled fish, rice, pickles, miso soup, seaweed, but every single thing was so delicious that it blew other ryokan breakfasts away.

One thing which I adored about breakfast at Shiraume was that they end with fruit and your choice of coffee or tea. While I love Japanese culture and try to partake as much as I possibly can when I’m in the country, I won’t only have green tea at breakfast. There’s no getting in the way of my cup of java in the morning. Luckily, it wasn’t my first cup though, because in Baian and our room in Shiraume, there is also a Nespresso machine in the room, which is a huge plus.

Breakfast can be served either in your room or in the communal dining room, and we tried both. The communal dining room isn’t that big, and only one other guest was sharing the space with us. The communal dining room also looks out on the little river in front of the ryokan and we enjoyed watching a grey heron ambling through the water. “He comes every day because we give him sashimi,” Tomoko said. I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. The second day, we had dinner in our room. I was slightly concerned that the food wouldn’t be as hot, but as with every great ryokan, they had thought of everything. Under the food, they’d put little burners like you see at a buffet to keep the hot items, like the hamaguri clam soup, warm.

We also ate dinner at Shiraume one night, which was good but not outstanding, and definitely not as fantastic as breakfast. When you make the booking, there is a long and detailed list of options about the dinner menus available. There’s the standard dinner which comes in at Yen 13,000, or you can bump up the offering to the upgraded quality dinner, the excellent quality dinner, or the best quality dinner, which runs Yen 20,000.

For all of the quality offerings, you can choose between the Kobe steak or the kaiseki offering. Because the kaiseki offering included sashimi instead of meat, and we had already gorged on sushi in Tokyo, we decided to have the steak, and just took the standard price offering. The marbling was beautiful, even after it had been cooked and just a couple mouthfuls in, we knew we had made the correct choice.

How Shiraume blew me away

As I mentioned previously, I’ve been lucky enough to go to a number of ryokans in Japan, but Shiraume really wowed me with the uber-personalized and attentive service. It all started with the proprietor, Tomoko, who like I said, made her attention to detail clear from our initial emails.

In fact, there are not as many photos as I would have liked of our meals and the ryokan in general because Tomoko was so often there, chatting with us, and I felt it would be rude to pull out my phone and start snapping.

Service was just incredible – attentive, friendly and helpful without being overbearing. The staff at Shiraume remembered what we attraction we had gone to see each day and asked us about it when we came back. They left notes in our room to welcome us back from dinner. They wrote handwritten menus for every meal in beautiful calligraphy on fine paper.

Tomoko is a walking encyclopedia when it comes to Kyoto. She told us stories about the city and its attractions and was able to answer any question you might have. She is elegant and graceful and moves around the house with economy. I have an inkling that she either trained as a geisha or was one in a former life.

The bottom line

This time around, I realized that during my first trip to Kyoto, I did not make it over to the Gion district or any of the sights on the east side of the river which most visitors associate with the city. I completely missed classic Kyoto as a result had subpar memories of the city. I’m glad I gave it another chance. Staying at Shiraume provided me with some much better memories of a trip to Kyoto and I’m sure I will be back again.