9 Best Hotels in Tokyo, Japan

With a central location and stylish, bright, and relatively spacious guest rooms, this hotel is a reliable choice for business travelers and families alike. The Michelin two-star French restaurant Pierre Gagnaire has excellent views, and the Atrium Lounge has live piano performances that create quite the atmosphere.

Elevators shoot up 28 floors in the slick, green-hued Tokyo Shiodome Building to a lobby of dark oak paneling and bronze lattices at the luxurious Conrad, which artfully mixes ultramodern and traditional Japanese aesthetics. Rooms have high ceilings and bathrooms with dual sinks, rain-shower heads, and separate tubs (complete with rubber duckies). For the best views, opt for a room facing the bay rather than one overlooking the city. Indeed, the Twin Bay View Rooms (a roomy 516 square feet) have the latest in modern hotel design (granite bathroom counters, ergonomic desk chairs) and Japanese aesthetics (a charcoal drawing of cherry blossoms above the headboard). Dining options include the award-winning China Blue and Kazahana, which serves superb Japanese cuisine and overlooks the Hama Rikyu Garden. Be sure to come with plenty of Hilton points (or your best plastic)—room prices are as sky-high as the lobby entrance.

When you have had enough of feeling that you're in a city, try this sheltered haven of a hotel surrounded by a 17-acre garden nestled onto the former estate of an imperial prince. Guest rooms, some of the city's largest, are done it tasteful, muted tones. Spacious bathrooms have soaking tubs with separate showers. Deluxe rooms overlook the garden or offer pleasant skyline views. Amenities include a spa and a pool that can be adjusted for use in all conditions.

The InterContinental offers lovely views of the Rainbow Bridge, Tokyo Bay, and surrounding Odaiba and has large rooms featuring soft neutral textiles and bathrooms with separate showers and tubs—all of which offsets a somewhat isolated location, wedged between Tokyo Bay and an expressway, with nothing in the way of nearby entertainment options. The club floors (20th to 24th) have a breakfast buffet and complimentary evening drinks to go with a dedicated check-in area. Haneda Airport is easily accessible from JR Hamamatsucho Station, just an 8-minute walk from the hotel.

Situated in the heart of Ginza, this hotel is a chic place to unwind after a day of shopping and before a night on the town. Rooms range from spacious king-bed doubles and twins to sprawling suites; all are sleekly designed and have nice touches like Nespresso machines, eco-friendly Bee Kind bath products, and 50-inch wall-mounted TVs. Although the Centric keeps things minimal in terms of communal hotel facilities, it does have a bar, restaurant, gym, and laidback lobby lounge.

Though not as fashionable or modern as its neighbor the Peninsula, when it comes to traditional elegance, it's hard to top the venerable Imperial, which opened in 1890 and has always been justly proud of its Western-style facilities and personalized Japanese service. Located in the heart of central Tokyo, between the Imperial Palace and Ginza, the hotel has its finest rooms on the 30th floor of the tower, providing views of the palace grounds. In general, rooms—complete with walk-in closets—range from standard singles (344 square feet) to suites that are larger than many homes. Since some Tower rooms are just above the JR train lines, a room closer to Hibiya Park might be a little more pleasing. Dining options are varied and superb, including the award-winning Les Saisons, which is one of Tokyo's finest French restaurants. The Old Imperial Bar incorporates elements from the 1923 version of the hotel, which Frank Lloyd Wright designed, and the Toko-An teahouse offers traditional tea ceremonies.

Smoothly blending modernity with traditional Japanese aesthetics, the Strings by InterContinental is one of Shinagawa's top-tier hotels, where the lobby features an artful mix of dark wood and stone—as well as a glass bridge that spans a pond—and where the rooms have high-quality linens, natural wood accents, and astounding city views (it can be mesmerizing to watch the trains pass efficiently through Shinagawa Station). Prices in the hotel restaurants tend to be high, but the Shinagawa area has dining options for every budget. Access is a breeze to the Kyoto- and Nagoya-bound shinkansen (bullet train) and direct trains to both Narita and Haneda Airport .

Most of central Tokyo is readily accessible by train from this hotel beside the city's most popular sports facility (check the summer baseball schedule), where entertainments include a small amusement park and a hot-springs spa. Although rooms are a tad tired and awash in beige, they're reasonably sized and feature a sports motif. The 43rd-floor Artist's Cafe offers live music and overlooks the the "Big Egg," home of the Central League's Yomiuri Giants. Batter up!

Just off Cat Street, which connects trendy Shibuya with equally trendy Harajuku (aka Omotesando), this boutique hotel has an open terrace, a lobby-lounge bar, and other common areas where guests have the opportunity to interact with locals and feel a part of Tokyo's creative scene. Each of Trunk's 15 rooms and suites has a unique layout, but all are on the artsy side; some feature an outdoor space. In addition, the hotel offers different experiences like area architecture tours.