RYOTEI HANZUIRYO

Unzen, on the Shimabara Peninsula of Nagasaki prefecture, is one of Japan's most historically charged hot spring destinations. The town became internationally notorious in the early 17th century as a site where Christian converts were tortured and martyred in the volcanic thermal vents during the Edo government's suppression of Christianity — a history that gives the landscape an additional layer of meaning beneath its scenic volcanic character. Unzen's jigoku (hells), its pale sulfurous steam, and the bleached white volcanic terrain have drawn visitors throughout the modern era for the specific sensory intensity of experiencing a landscape that is actively, visibly geological.

RYOTEI HANZUIRYO is a ryotei — a high-class traditional Japanese dining establishment that also offers lodging — occupying this particular setting. The ryotei format, distinct from the standard ryokan in its explicit elevation of the dining experience to primary status, reflects an understanding that in Unzen, the combination of extraordinary landscape and exceptional food creates a stay whose two central elements reinforce each other. The local ingredients — fresh seafood from the Ariake Sea and the coast of the Shimabara Peninsula, highland vegetables from the peninsula's interior, and produce shaped by the volcanic soil — provide material for cooking of genuine regional character.

The sulfurous onsen water of Unzen, milky and deeply mineral in content, is among the most distinctively Japanese thermal bathing experiences available in Kyushu. Its temperature, its tactile character, and the visual drama of the fumaroles that dot the landscape around the town give the bathing experience a dimension that sanitized hotel onsen cannot replicate.

For travelers making the Nagasaki circuit — the history of the port city, the Shimabara Peninsula, the hidden Christian landscape — RYOTEI HANZUIRYO offers a stop with both culinary ambition and geological drama.