STAY > TRUNK(HOTEL), Yoyogi Park, Shibuya Tokyo (17/20)

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TRUNK(HOTEL) YOYOGI PARK is a design-led, boutique bolthole on the edge of Yoyogi Park that channels low-key Tokyo cool, rooftop glamour, and neighbourhood warmth in equal measure. This is a place for those who want Shibuya’s energy within walking distance, but prefer to wake up to trees, terrace light, and the scent of wood-fired pizza drifting up from below.

AMBIENCE >

Perched on the Tomigaya side of Yoyogi Park, the hotel feels more like an elevated urban hideaway than a city high-rise, with 25 rooms layered in polished concrete, warm timber, soft textiles, and just enough greenery to echo the park outside. There is an immediate sense of curated calm: corridors are hushed, the lobby intimate, and the aesthetic distinctly contemporary Tokyo—understated, confident, and quietly photogenic.

Floor-to-ceiling windows frame treetops and skyline rather than billboards, and the public spaces lean into tactility—stone, linen, leather, and brushed metal—offset by thoughtful lighting that keeps everything in a perpetual late-afternoon glow. It is boutique in the truest sense: compact, polished, and clearly designed for guests who care as much about mood and materials as they do about square metres.

STAY >

With just a handful of keys, rooms feel more like city pads than anonymous hotel inventory, many opening out to balconies or terraces that pull the park and Shibuya’s low-rise streetscapes right into the frame. Inside, expect clean-lined furniture, plush beds, and bathrooms that punch above their footprint, with soaking tubs or walk-in showers and amenities pitched squarely at the design-conscious weekender.

Space, as always in Tokyo, is at a premium, and some categories will feel snug once luggage and shopping are added, but storage has been cleverly considered and the finishes are elevated enough to make compact living feel deliberate rather than compromised. Sound isolation in our room was a little hit and miss and the road noise tended to drift in during the early hours of the morning, I would suggest asking for a room at a higher level to minimise the potential intrusion. Mornings begin with that soft, green-filtered light with the views across Yoyogi Park that makes it tempting to linger in bed longer than planned.

EAT >

Down at street level, PIZZERIA e TRATTORIA L’Ombelico acts as both hotel dining room and neighbourhood magnet, facing Inokashira-dori and spilling its energy out towards the park. Under the guidance of chef Isamu Inoue, the kitchen leans hard into Naples via Tokyo—wood-fired pizza from an imported Italian oven, proper blistered crusts, and a menu of pastas and trattoria staples that feel generous rather than fussy.

All-day service keeps things flexible: breakfast slides into lazy lunches with views of the greenery, and as afternoon fades, the room fills with locals, couples, and families treating the restaurant as their local Italian rather than a hotel bolt-on. It is the kind of place where ordering one pizza quickly turns into a table scattered with antipasti, a second bottle, and a shared dessert you did not plan on.

DRINK >

The star move is heading upstairs to TRUNK(POOL CLUB), the rooftop pool and lounge that delivers one of the more cinematic park-side vantages in the city: infinity-edge water, a firepit, loungers, and that wide stretch of Yoyogi green rolling out beneath the skyline. By day it is all about ‘Urban Recharge’—low- and non-alcoholic options alongside lighter cocktails and something chilled by the glass—while by evening the mood shifts to oysters, signatures, and a soundtrack that leans more bar than beach club.

Service walks the line between relaxed and attentive, with staff quick to talk you through the list or steer you towards a seasonal special that suits the weather and the moment. It is easy to lose a few hours here, watching the park slide from daylight to dusk, Tokyo turning to a sea of lights just beyond the rail.

CONCLUSION >

TRUNK(HOTEL) YOYOGI PARK is for travellers who would rather trade Shibuya’s neon crush for a more grown-up version of the city—one where mornings begin with espresso and greenery, and evenings end poolside with a cocktail. The rooms may skew compact in places, but the design, rooftop, and strong food-and-drink game more than compensate, especially if you treat the hotel as your Tomigaya basecamp, (right next to the hip Kamiyama Street) rather than just a bed for the night.

Come for the architecture, the park views, and the promise of a Tokyo stay that feels plugged-in yet quietly removed, and stay for the sense that you have slipped into a local rhythm—one where you are as likely to share a table with neighbours as with fellow out-of-towners.

Kamiyama Street, tucked into the Oku-Shibu backstreets behind Shibuya’s scramble and Bunkamura, feels like the city exhaling: a gently sloping neighbourhood where gallery-like lifestyle stores, natural-wine bistros and Nordic-leaning coffee bars share the pavement with old-school butchers, kissaten and long-standing local tradesmen. By day, latte-sipping creatives and stroller-pushing locals drift between pared-back bakeries, flower shops and magazine-ready boutiques, framed by low-rise apartments and a rare sense of human scale that recalls a European quartier more than a megacity thoroughfare. It is home to the Tokyo office of Monocle Magazine and blends style, food and drinks.

After dark, the street’s discreet noren, second-floor counters and reservation-only izakaya glow into view, drawing a knowing crowd for moody wine lists, quietly ambitious cooking and that particular Tokyo intimacy where every few metres promises another small, impeccable room. For Almanak readers, Kamiyama Street is where Shibuya’s hyper-urban energy softens into something slower, hyper-local and irresistibly liveable – a pocket of Tokyo whose cool is worn lightly, but whose details reward repeat visits.

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