Watching the Port Opening fireworks from a top-floor table

We watched the fireworks of the Yokohama Port Opening Festival from a hotel restaurant. Watching fireworks without moving from a seat was new to me.

From the grill on the top floor

On the top floor of The Westin Yokohama there is a restaurant called Iron Bay. A grill working over wood fire for meat and fish, with the Minato Mirai night view through the windows.

We ate there that evening — the night of the 2025 Yokohama Port Opening Festival.

They start going up mid-meal

The festival includes fireworks. At the appointed time, the outside of the window turned bright.

I had understood a fireworks display as something where you stake out a spot, look up from inside a crowd, and queue a long way to the station afterwards. None of that here. You stay seated, you carry on eating, and it is directly in front of you.

There was a slight sense of having taken the easy route. But watching my daughter go over to the window to look, it seemed fine as it was.

Spending a festival day quietly

A festival is fundamentally people gathering and making noise. Watching it from inside a window, it is hard to claim you are taking part.

Even so, you were in that place at that hour on that day. You are watching fireworks that went up into the same sky. There can be more than one way of being involved.

Notes from this evening

• Iron Bay, the wood-fire grill on the top floor of The Westin Yokohama
• The Minato Mirai night view is visible from the windows
• The Yokohama Port Opening Festival is usually held in early June and includes fireworks
• This was the night of the 2025 festival
• Festival dates, menus and hours change. Check before you go

Opening details are as they were at the time of the visit. Some images here are illustrations, not photographs.

More on this hotel: The Westin Yokohama club lounge.