Introduction
Japan was the site of these Dessert Correspondents’ very first solo dessert travel way back in 2015, and just over ten years later, we still love it. From Tokyo to Kyoto and back again, we have hunted down the most beautiful Japanese wagashi in both cities (see here and here), Tokyo’s best sakura cherry blossom high teas, and Kyoto’s most evocative traditional tea house, ryokan tea experience, prettiest flower desserts and cherry blossom spots, and most Instagrammable character-themed dessert cafes. In this volume of our Japan dessert adventures, during the autumn season, we ventured back to our favourite area of Kyoto – Arashiyama – and after a long day of photographing some of Arashiyama’s most iconic fall foliage spots, we find a moment of stillness at one of its most luxurious hotels, the riverside Suiran Hotel.
The best autumn foliage spots in Arashiyama worth visiting
When spring blooms in Kyoto, it feels like every corner is awashed in delicate pink flowers. The same could be said for the city during the autumn season. Of all the spots we checked out in Arashiyama, the following were the most memorable. They are best visited around the 9-10am or 2-4pm hour when the sun glows upon the leaves.
- Jojakkoji Temple
- Hokyo-in Temple
- Togetsukyo Bridge and Hozu River area
We also visisted the IG-famous “Yusatei Gallery.” Requiring at least a month advance booking, this place is best visited during the morning. However, in our opinion, you could very well skip it as the overall experience is entirely dismal. You have to line up about an hour before the designated entrance time to save your spot, and once inside, you are herded – literally, herded – from one room to the other. You then have approximately 2 minutes in each room, and this time allocation is strictly-controlled by the venue’s attendants, to the point of military precision. We barely had time to adjust our camera settings, let alone actually enjoy the view. This isn’t a “peaceful” spot in any sense. It is nothing more and nothing less a spot set up to take a picture and leave, pronto. And for us, it simply demonstrated how the race for virality on social media can so very easily demote something originally beautiful into something utterly souless.
A riverside afternoon tea in Arashiyama
Located about 15 minutes walking distance from the centre of the town, the Suiran Hotel occupies a prime riverside location on the Hozu River. Past a vermilion gated entrance, Cafe Hassui – the restaurant where afternoon tea takes place – is to the left of a curved path. Inside, the ambience is exceedingly hushed notwithstanding that on our visit, it was fully populated with hotel guests and tourists. As we were visiting during peak fall, we had advance-reserved on TableCheck (Japan’s English language version of Resy/Opentable) both a river view table and the afternoon tea set before arriving.
The afternoon tea at Cafe Hassui itself was very simple – neither bountiful nor creative like the ones that we had encountered in Tokyo during cherry blossom season. It began with a large crescent of sweet potato wrapped in a cheese blanket and scattered with green tea salt flakes; this comprised the sole savoury item. On a wooden stand, the other afternoon tea nibbles comrpised a small bowl of wobbly matcha jelly upon which we poured a dark soy sauce caramel and soybean powder, a cocktail of chocolate brownie and citrus fruit stacked inside a mini cloche, a footed platter graced by a slice of jelly bisected into a jade green and a clear crystal and a matcha mochi ball filled with red bean paste. In short, Cafe Hassui is not a place where high tea can replace a meal. It is rather, just a short sweet pitstop that can be used to punctuate a tiring day walking from one autumn foliage spot to another. For us, we spent just under two hours resting our legs, recharging our camera battery, sipping a strong hojicha tea and wistfully contemplating the fiery colours of the autumn leaves just beyond the window as it contrasted with the very hushed setting of the hotel itself.
Dessert adventure checklist
- ☑ Dessert destination: Cafe Hassui at the Suiran Hotel, Arashiyama, Kyoto, Japan.
- ☑ Budget: $$$.
- ☑ Sweet irresistibles: High Tea.
- ☑ The short and sweet story: A moment of stillness at a riverside afternoon tea spot in Kyoto’s Arashiyama.
- ☑ Travel notes:
- How long? Kyoto is a compact historic city. If you are a first-time visitor, plan for a minimum of 3 days. Each time that we have been to Kyoto, we have stayed for a week — for both desserts and landscape photography.
- When to visit? We visited during the last week of November 2025, and it was peak fall. We did not find Japanese Tourism Bureau’s forecast for peak autumn particularly helpful – it predicted peak fall several weeks too late. We strongly recommend monitoring the autumn leaf forecasts on the Chinese app, Xiao Hong Shu, instead; there are live updates. This also applies for the cherry blossom season too.
- How to get there? Getting to Kyoto is not convenient — there is no international airport nearby, you have to train to and from Osaka airport. The alternative is that you can arrive by Shinkansen, but we are not great fans of this train system, especially compared to the far more straightforward booking convenience and greater operational smoothness of China’s high-speed rail system.
- Where to stay? For a first-time visitors to Kyoto, or those who want a central location, we recommend staying in the Gion or Southern Higashiyama area. We really like the Hyatt Regency in this area. Further afield in Arashiyama, we will never forget Hoshinoya Kyoto (see previous review here), but since rooms are exceptionally limited during the peak cherry blossom and autumn leaf seasons, we can also recommend the Suiran where the above high tea took place.
