One hundred and twenty-two rooms in Azabudai Hills. Aman calls it Sanskrit for soul, and the second brand is here to make some noise.
The reception at Janu Tokyo, Azabudai Hills, Minato
Aman Tokyo books out months ahead. The original urban Aman, a vertical retreat in the Otemachi tower, is the calmest hotel in the city and the hardest to get into. Vladislav Doronin, who runs the group, has spent a decade in that quiet. Janu is the answer to the question of what comes after.
The new property occupies the lower thirteen floors of a Pelli Clarke and Partners tower at Azabudai Hills. The development covers eight hectares. Ninety-one Aman residences sit at the top of the Mori JP Tower next door. Janu is the only hotel in the complex, which means it inherits the galleries, the office workers, the buyers from the hundred and fifty retail tenants, and the foot traffic of a small district. The Aman idea of a hidden door has been replaced.
The brief
Jean-Michel Gathy designed the interiors. He has done most of the Amans, including New York and Venice, and he was on this one for five years. The brief, in his words, was to keep the DNA and add youthfulness, energy, vibrancy. The lobby reads as Aman until the bracket lamps. They are oversized. The Hu Jing restaurant has a red lacquered ceiling. Red, in Aman terms, is a violent colour. It is not present anywhere else in the portfolio.
If Aman is a sanctuary, Janu is about connection. The brief was to keep the DNA and let the volume rise.
Léa FontaineThe rooms hold the line. Muted palette, shoji-screen dividers, partly unfinished grey plaster walls, floor-to-ceiling windows. Even the smallest is fifty-five square metres, which puts it among the largest entry rooms in Tokyo. The Janu Suite reaches five hundred and nineteen. Most have balconies. Book the Tower View category for the city skyline at night, when the red lacquer of Hu Jing throws colour onto the glass.
The wellness floor
Four thousand square metres of fitness and spa. A three-hundred-and-forty-square-metre gym with Outrace and Skill X circuits. Five studios for spinning, boxing, golf, yoga. A twenty-five-metre heated lap pool with a lounge pool alongside it as the social anchor. Two banya, two hammams, hot and cold plunge pools. The premise is that you will speak to other guests at the gym and the pool deck. The Aman premise was that you would not.
The pools, the wellness floor, Janu Tokyo
Seven treatment rooms run a short menu. The ninety-minute Signature Massage uses manual lymphatic drainage, copper wand therapy and a Kansa comb scalp massage. The programme has expanded outside the building. The Art of Bonsai session at Tradman’s Bonsai sends guests to a master craftsman in the city. The point is that Janu wants you out of the room.
The dining
Five restaurants, all on the public floors. Janu Mercato seats one hundred and fifty-one and runs all day with pasta counters, seafood, European charcuterie. Janu Grill seats one hundred and thirty-two. Sumi is a sumibiyaki room. Iigura, the sushi counter, has ten table seats and seven at the bar. Hu Jing is the Chinese restaurant with the red ceiling.
A dining room at Janu Tokyo, design by Jean-Michel Gathy
The scale is the point. Aman dining is small and discreet. Janu dining is built for crossover. You eat where the people from the residences eat, where the Azabudai Hills shoppers eat, where the gallery openings spill in afterwards. For Tokyo Fashion Week, that proximity to the retail and the restaurants reads as useful.
The verdict
Aman Tokyo will continue to be the hardest reservation in the city. Janu is the louder room next door, and it is the right room for a different kind of week in Tokyo. Fashion week, a buying trip, a residency at the galleries downstairs. The wellness floor alone justifies the booking. The fact that the elevator opens onto the Azabudai retail floors, which include some of the best shopping in Asia, makes the case stronger.
Book the Tower View. Eat once at Iigura and once at Janu Mercato. Use the lap pool early. Leave the room a little more than you would at the original.
The Splendid Edit visited Janu Tokyo in April 2026. Standard rates start from approximately ¥180,000 per night. Tower View from ¥240,000. Janu Suite on request. Book through aman.com/hotels/janu-tokyo.
Photography courtesy of Aman Group, via Wallpaper*