T+L’s Hotel Review of Patina Osaka in Japan

I checked in Patina Osaka two days before its glass doors officially slid open to guests on May 1, a bit sleep deprived after a red-eye flight with my 15-month-old daughter. The graceful yet stimulating design comprised layered exterior walls that mimic rammed earth, abundant warm wood, a mesmerizing commissioned video wall projection by Takashi Makino, and tactile materials such as ethereal washi paper and grounded granite and ceramic.

After being whisked 14 floors up to our corner suite on the fringes of downtown, the curtains opened to reveal Osaka Castle facing me square on, with its surrounding lush park as a halo—one that, just weeks ago, I was told, had erupted in cherry blossoms. I instantly felt at peace. That verdant vista of a piece of ancient, intricate architecture centered me in storied Osaka and proved a delightfully consistent through line for my stay.

I gazed at the castle constructed in 1583 by samurai Toyotomi Hideyoshi (and later rebuilt by a different shogun) through the 20-story hotel’s floor-to-ceiling glass windows while eating breakfasts of locally crafted Japanese cheeses, juicy regionally grown fruits, just-baked pastries with house-made preserves, and flavorful Basque stew with savory sausage at Iñaki. I peeked at it during swims in the sublime lap pool and while soaking in the onsen-like hot tub. I admired it over afternoon tea at Nijiri, the shoji-walled tea lounge whose name references the reverential act of kneeling or crouching to enter a tea house.

It was intriguing to see how Capella Hotel Group bonded this first urban Patina hotel with its tropical island resort in the Maldives, known as a highly connected social hub with experiential art, activations, and elevated takes on sustainability. Here, despite the surrounding metropolis, the rhythms of nature are felt through design, cuisine, and what is likely Osaka’s first edible garden at an urban hotel, already growing 20 different herbs—chervil, chamomile, wild strawberries, borage flowers, and six different types of mint. This contributed to beautiful surprises, moments of repose, and bold flavors on each day of my visit.

Osaka, Japan, has seen an influx of new hotels in the last year—including the Waldorf Astoria Osaka and the Four Seasons Hotel Osaka. Patina Osaka is the newest luxury stay in the burgeoning city—here’s my full review.

The Rooms

Patina Osaka has 221 rooms and suites, and while they vary in view and size, all feature design hallmarks that embody a sense of place. The 3D washi paper headboards behind cognac-hued leather and wood beds—dressed in silky Frette bedding in a delicate granite color made custom for the hotel—were molded from a section of the castle’s granite stone wall, ancient imperfections and all. The elegant, minimalist light pendants feel very Japanese, as do the large tatami mat–slash–window seats and ceramic wall hangings repaired with gold à la kintsugi. The bathroom, with a rain shower, copper fixtures, a large soaking tub, and a mosaic of natural gray stone, felt sumptuous and modern. I adored wearing the fluffy Garnier Thiebaut bathrobe and super-soft Japanese pajamas in jade green that matched the castle roof. The in-room yoga mat and ceramic cups for tea from the well-stocked minibar followed the same color inspiration.

My Junior Suite, at 807 square feet, was pleasantly spacious with plentiful cushy places to recline, sit, and work, or play with my toddler—or let her nap in the bedroom with the lovely washi-covered doors slid shut while I took a quiet bath or hung out in the living room. Perhaps the best perk of the suite was the large balcony with ample plump seating and an atmospheric floor lamp, a glorious extension of the indoor space for prime castle viewing.

When I walked through the standard 538-square-foot Deluxe Room, it felt perfectly sized, especially for a couple or solo traveler, still with a generous bathroom including a tub and a tatami daybed with a legless Japanese zaisu chair atop it. The hotel’s penthouse-type accommodation is the castle-facing Patina Suite, equipped with its own turntable and sound system plus a minimalist Japanese-style meditation room.

Food and Drink

“It’s my baby,” Antony Scholtmeyer, the hotel’s culinary director, told me, looking ecstatic as he carefully pulled up the very first fennel from the sun-drenched edible garden outside P72, the restaurant, which he conceived after spending seven years at Capella Bangkok.

The ground-floor restaurant’s name references the 72 micro seasons acknowledged in Japan, called shichijūni-kō, and translates to a new tasting menu every few days, depending on what the organic farm on nearby Awaji Island sends in their weekly 44-pound omakase veg box. For our lunch, he cleaned and divided the fennel into parts to poach and serve with sea bream and risotto of house-fermented lemon koji rice and garden peas. The idea behind the lunch- and afternoon tea–only restaurant is to waste as little as possible. Instead of letting the lemon tree’s leaves fall and wither, the culinary team makes oils to use in Scholtmeyer’s imaginative cooking. Onion skin is cooked, pureed, and dehydrated with several other simple ingredients into a wafer; oysters are wrapped in fermented cherry blossom leaves. “With fermenting and pickling, you can reuse a lot of things you’d waste,” he told me of the conscious outlet’s ethos, which is designed with local diners in mind.

The top floors, 19 and 20, are dedicated to four additional dining concepts. There, the hotel’s overarching theme of kisetsukan, meaning seasonal awareness, is felt most evidently at Iñaki. The Basque all-day dining restaurant features bountiful installations of preserved flowers and flora hanging from the wood-coffered ceiling to represent the four seasons. It’s where we devoured breakfast with a side of Osaka Castle views, and dined on wood-fired octopus with black ink sauce, tender Iberico pork, and seawater ice cream with olive oil and almond foam that I can’t stop thinking about. My toddler’s spaghetti and meatballs were so delicious, I couldn’t help but steal bites.

Barin is the hotel’s high-end teppanyaki restaurant, seating 10 people at the counter and up to 16 in booths lining a long mural hand-drawn on gold leaf depicting Osaka’s history. There, the two well-pedigreed chefs prepared melt-in-my-mouth Kuroge wagyu on the teppan—which originated in Kobe, not too far from Osaka—in-season spiny lobster, as well as a type of onion so sweet and delicious it blew me away.

Beyond the Setouchi granite Stone Garden and Nijiri Tea Lounge, the striking spiral staircase clad in indigo dip-dyed washi paper and leading upstairs to Sonata Bar & Lounge was one of my personal favorite design moments. Up in the dynamic, moodily lit music-themed space, bartenders mixed libations inspired by Osaka’s 1970 world’s fair using Japanese ingredients (one described my Tiger Child cocktail—Roku gin, dry vermouth, and mirin rice wine—as a “Japanese culture martini”). The bar also hosts weekly vinyl collector gatherings around a long communal table and a DJ booth turntable on which guests are welcome to pop on their own selection from the 6,000-strong record collection. Sonata’s private room is the most atmospheric of all, with a jigsaw puzzle wall of 15,000 pounds of Japanese-made vintage analog speakers behind a long, cozy sofa.

It’s worth mentioning that all dining outlets went out of their way to accommodate my friend’s gluten and dairy allergies, even ensuring she had her own brown sugar scones and pretty savories and sweets during our afternoon tea at Nijiri.

Activities and Experiences

The hotel’s gorgeous indoor swimming pool and jetted hot pool, along with the spa and wellness facilities, provide plenty of ways to spend a day, but there is much more to choose from when it comes to planning your time.

There are two Perpetual Journeys per day, meant to invite reflection or wonder; they’re complimentary for guests and change every couple of months. For the moment, these include guided castle park jogs, breathwork, stretching, and aqua walking as Patina Rise activities in the mornings. The Listening Room by OJAS, with its world-class speaker system and vinyl selection curated by sound sculptor Devon Turnbull, is the site of morning soundscape sessions.

There are fermentation workshops and hands-on Soba to Ōmugi lunches happening regularly in P72, plus a weekly immersive design tour led by general manager Ellen Franke. At a charge, guests may also book a cute Patina Osaka wagon, packed with chairs, cuddly blankets, bites, and drinks for a bucolic picnic in the park.

The Spa

Patina Wellness sprawls across a full floor for a 15,000-square-foot glass-wrapped wellbeing oasis. The spa is well rounded not only from an indulgent and restorative treatment perspective, but in the way it weaves advanced health technology into the experiences. I tried two packages that paired both during my stay. First was an anti-aging and beauty-focused treatment that combined 20 minutes in a relaxingly warm red light bed with a Japanese Microbiome and Fermented Enzyme Facial. It featured skincare made similarly to sake, with aged fermented rice bran, and the truly divine textures made the hydrating treatment even more sensorial. Another day, after a tranquil stint in the hyperbaric oxygen chamber, I sank into bliss during a signature body treatment with light dry brushing and soft-tissue massage using rose hip-scented coconut oil.

While they feel pampering, the treatments are all quite intentional in their purpose, including offerings like the infrared sauna, cryotherapy, and compression therapy. Guests can book floating stand-up paddle board yoga at the pool or personal training in the Technogym-equipped fitness center. I chose to swim slow laps in the 65-foot pool, enjoying the sight of the rippling water as warm copper light cascaded from the oversized wood-slat coffers in the soaring ceiling.

Family-friendly Offerings

Traveling with my toddler, we experienced firsthand how little ones are treated, and it involved striped teepees, sustainable wooden toys, preemptively baby-proofed furniture corners, a diaper pail and baby tub, and a white chocolate “photograph” of the two of us as a poignant welcome amenity in our suite.

On opening day, I was pleasantly surprised by the number of families and multigenerational groups that checked in. I was told the forthcoming kids’ programming here may include origami sessions. In the meantime, restaurants were all equipped with high chairs, a kids’ menu, and special creations arrived for my daughter on cute wooden bear plates.

For our castle picnic, the staff packed milk and customized a food box with her favorite fruits (i.e. tons of blueberries and sliced banana). What truly made me feel she was genuinely welcomed was the super kind staff, who clearly relished engaging with not only my child, whom they affectionately called Mira-chan (-chan being an endearing Japanese suffix often used for kids), but other little ones, too.

Accessibility and Sustainability

Accessibility seemed to me a priority of the hotel, which has three ADA rooms and features accessible elevators, wheelchair-friendly halls and restaurant entries, and a handicap lift for the pool.

Local production and sourcing, upcycling, zero single-use plastic, and creative reuse are at the heart of Patina Osaka’s thoughtful sustainability efforts. I was impressed with how well the designers behind it made use of scraps, whether in P72’s undulating 170-foot ceiling installation inspired by plant roots and made with wood bits reclaimed from an Osaka factory, the turndown satchel of fragrant hinoki wood shavings to aid in pre-sleep relaxation, or artwork by Osakan ceramist Toru Hatta made from construction waste. A sizable painting by Wataru Hatano in Sonata Bar & Lounge dubbed “Mud” features dirt unearthed from the hotel’s construction site.

And one of my personal favorites, a fiery abstract piece in Iñaki’s private dining room, was fashioned from curlicue cones of vibrant recycled paper. Even the hotel’s green ink pens are recycled—and recyclable—cardboard. Beverages are bottled only in glass or metal, and bathrooms are stocked with large bottles of toiletries by B Corp–certified Bamford.

Location

Osaka Castle and its surrounding park—heaving with cherry trees and Japanese maples for vibrant displays in spring and fall—couldn’t be closer to the hotel and is a major attraction of the foodie city. Some rooms and restaurants face Naniwa-no-Miya-Ato Park, which has an expansive green lawn and coffee shops. Though it feels on the edge of Osaka’s concrete jungle, Patina Osaka is only about 10 minutes by taxi from luxury designer boutiques, the hilariously oversized 3D, kinetic signage and markets of Dotonbori, and the cool shopping-centric Tachibana Street (nicknamed Orange Street) in the relaxed, friendly, and open-minded destination.

Uber is available, and there’s Lupe for e-bike and scooter rentals. Guests can borrow, for no charge, one of four Mate e-bikes for spins around the park or beyond, say to Tanimachi nearby for local neighborhood vibes including charming izakayas, gyoza shops, and excellent, one-woman restaurants such as Tachiaoi. The hotel offers a shuttle three times a day to and from the closest train stations, which could take you to Kyoto in just 20-30 minutes or to the Osaka World Expo 2025, running through October 13, 2025.

How to Get the Most Value Out of Your Stay

Patina Osaka is part of Patina Hotels & Resorts’ Discovery loyalty program, allowing members to earn rewards on purchases and stays.

Nightly rates at Patina Osaka start from $875.

Every T+L hotel review is written by an editor or reporter who has stayed at the property, and each hotel selected aligns with our core values.