PRICE:
Frommer's Very Highly Recommended

This is a delightfully old-fashioned, unpretentious (some might say dowdy) hotel with character. Built in 1937 and boasting an Art Deco facade, it was once the favorite haunt of writers, including novelist Mishima Yukio. Avoid the cheaper, more boring rooms in the annex unless you spring for the higher-priced Art Septo rooms on the seventh floor with their flower boxes outside the windows, black leather furnishings, LCD TV with CD player, and fancier bathrooms. Otherwise, rooms in the main building have such endearing, homey touches as fringed lampshades, doilies, cherrywood furniture (and mahogany desks), velvet curtains, vanity tables, and old-fashioned heaters with intricate grillwork. Some twins even combine a tatami area and shoji with beds; the most expensive twin overlooks its own Japanese garden. Don't be surprised if the reception desk remembers you by name. Although the Hilltop is not as centrally located or up-to-date as other hotels, nearby Meiji University brings lots of young people and liveliness to the area.

Copyright: Excerpted from Frommer's Tokyo, 10th Edition, (c) 2008, Wiley Publishing, Inc.

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