Matsunoyama Onsen Tamaki-ya Sake Inn

Tamaki-ya is a small, eight-room ryokan at Matsunoyama Onsen, an old hot spring town whose water is counted among Japan's three noted therapeutic springs, alongside Arima and Kusatsu. The spring is hot and noticeably salty (it's traced back to ancient seawater sealed in the rock), and it's kept flowing fresh through every bath in the building. Six of the eight rooms have their own private open-air tub fed straight from the source, each finished differently, and there's also a shared indoor and outdoor bath on the ground floor, where you can sit and watch the snow through the winter months. The inn is built around pairing that water with food and drink: dinner is French and Italian technique cooking made from local Niigata ingredients, matched course by course with sake and wine chosen by the sommelier owner. It reads less like a set ryokan dinner and more like an evening spent moving between the table and the bath.