We spent the last night of the year on the club floor of The Westin Yokohama. The single thing I remember best is the steak.
What the club floor actually gets you
Book a club room and you get the lounge. At The Westin Yokohama that lounge is on the 22nd floor, and it is open to guests staying in club rooms and suites.
The counter holds the drinks and the glassware, and the lighting is kept low. Unlike the lobby lounge downstairs, there are hardly any people in it. Nobody to work around, nobody to be conscious of — you sit down and the time goes.
For orientation: the hotel opened on 13 June 2022 in Minato Mirai, has 373 rooms on floors 13 to 22, and puts its reception on the 23rd floor. Every room is at least 42 square metres. Minatomirai Station on the Minatomirai Line is about a six-minute walk.
The table changes with the hour
What comes out depends on when you go. The lounge runs on time slots — breakfast in the morning, soft drinks and light snacks through the middle of the day, a cocktail hour in the early evening with alcohol and hot food, and then coffee and soft drinks late. Exact hours move around, so check them when you book.
On our evening the table had a full spread: salad, cold starters, hot dishes. You take a little, you eat a little, you go back.
It is not a buffet in the sense of volume. But there is enough of it that you could reasonably decide not to go out for dinner, and we didn’t.
The steak was the thing
Out of everything on that table, the steak was clearly the best of it.
The lean cut had not been cooked through — the cross-section was still red — and the vegetables alongside it had been roasted with it rather than added afterwards. Judged as something handed to you in a hotel lounge, it was more than the format required.
There was penne too, in a cream sauce. That one sits in the “perfectly good” category. If you are ranking them, the steak was above it.
Why end a year in a hotel
Staying somewhere on the last night of the year makes the year actually end. At home the year turns over somewhere in the middle of the cleaning and the shopping, and you miss it.
Change the room and you get the line. One night, for nothing but that — I think it is a defensible use of a hotel.
Notes from this stay
- The Westin Yokohama, club floor. Minato Mirai, Yokohama; about 6 minutes on foot from Minatomirai Station
- Opened 13 June 2022. 373 rooms on floors 13–22, reception on 23F, all rooms 42 m² or larger
- The club lounge is on the 22nd floor and is for club-room and suite guests
- Offerings change by time slot; the early-evening service is substantial enough to stand in for dinner
- The steak was the standout — lean, and not cooked past red in the middle
- Hours, food and rates change. Confirm with the hotel when you book
Written from a stay at the turn of the year. Facilities, service and pricing change over time.
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