The Knot Hotel Review: Stylish Shinjuku Stay
Imagine this: You’ve just stepped out of Shinjuku Station, your heart racing as you dragged your case through the crowds, trying to find which of the over 200 exits is the right one. You finally surface on the pavement, the bright lights and chaos of Tokyo hitting you like a smack in the face. You’re exhausted, you’d sell a kidney for a shower, and you’re ready to crash. But your hotel is a short walk away, and no internal organs were sacrificed to pay the bill. You’re going to The Knot Hotel Shinjuku, a hotel that manages to be both central and affordable – no mean feat in Tokyo.
My very first night in Japan was spent in The Knot Hotel, and my husband and I liked it so much that we’ve now stayed there three times. It hits all the right notes: It’s in a great location, the design of the hotel is fun and stylish, and the price is reasonable for its location. If you’re looking for similar, read on for my very honest review of this Tokyo hotel.
At a Glance
| Star Rating | 3 star |
| Nearest Station | Shinjuku Station (about a 13 minute walk), Tochomae Station (4 minutes) |
| Room Type Stayed In | 17sqm Superior Queen Room / 16sqm Superior Double Room |
| Typical Cost Per Night | ¥33,000 (around £208, prices vary with season) |
| Check In/Out Times | 15:00 check in / 10:00 check out |
| Food Onsite? | Yes, a tapas restaurant and a bakery |
| Other Amenities? | Regular events in the bar, laundry facilities, microwave access, fridge in room. |
| Hotel’s Website | https://hotel-the-knot.jp/tokyoshinjuku/en/ |
First Impressions
Shinjuku is one of the busiest parts of Tokyo, and it’s known for its nightlife area of Kabukicho and huge, brightly lit buildings. The Knot Hotel is a step back from the colour and chaos. Walking towards the hotel, you’ll notice the street becoming a little quieter, and a more calm atmosphere settling over the place.
The hotel is in a modern, but unassuming building. Walking into the lobby, the first thing you’ll notice is its high ceilings and open space, with interesting light fixtures, warm wood and little design touches everywhere. This is a hotel that suits the city – it’s not overly fancy, but it’s not budget either. It gives off a total vibe of effortless cool. Maybe there’ll be a DJ spinning the decks in the lobby, or maybe there’s a gentle hum from the low lit bar at the front, or a queue of people for the in-house bakery.
Modern artwork dots the walls and bikes are used as decoration. It instantly feels like somewhere between hotel and hostel, without needing to share a room with 11 snoring strangers.
Location and Access
Getting to the Hotel
Metro
The closest metro station to The Knot Hotel is Tochomae Station, which is a 10 minute walk away. If you can find Exit A5, it’ll cut the journey down to 4 minutes. If you’re travelling from another part of Tokyo, take the Toei Oedo Line to Tochomae Station and go this way.
Train (Standard Route)
For most travellers, whether you’re coming in from another part of Japan or straight from the airport, you’re likely going to get in at Shinjuku Station. Look for the west exit, which will bring you out to ground level, and from there it’s another 14 minute walk to The Knot Hotel. This walk will take you by the skyscrapers and government buildings. It gets quieter at night time, but like most places in Japan, feels safe to walk.
The Bus
There is a local bus, Keio Bus #45, from JR Shinjuku West Exit that takes about 6 minutes and will leave you very close to the hotel. If the timing works out, and you can’t face the walk, this is a good option.
Airport Access
- From Narita Airport: Take the Narita Express to Shinjuku station, and follow the same steps as above.
- From Haneda Airport: You have a couple of options:
- Take the Keikyu Line to Shinagawa Station, then change for the JR Yamanote or Saikyo Line to Shinjuku.
- Take the Tokyo Monorail to Hamamatsucho Station, then change for the JR Yamanote Line to Shinjuku.
- Or, my personal recommendation: use the Airport Limousine bus. It’s generally more expensive than the train, but it brings you closer to the hotel, and saves you having to change trains if you’re travelling with bags. Take it to the Keio Plaza Hotel, and from there it’ll be about a 5-6 minute walk to The Knot Hotel.
The Check-In Process and Amenities
Checking In
Check-in starts at 15:00, although it may be possible to arrange an earlier check-in if you ask in advance. On my first visit, we were landing early so asked for an earlier check-in. The hotel advised us that the earliest check-in they can offer is from 12:00 and there’s an hourly fee of ¥2000 for this service. If you’re landing early and want to check in before 12:00, you’ll need to book your room for the previous night and leave a note for the hotel. As ever, check this with the hotel if this is something you want to arrange, as their policy can change.
Checking in is very easy – there’s a bank of self-check-in kiosks at the end of the lobby, where you’ll be asked for your passport details and asked to pay any additional charges. There are staff on hand to help you, and you can still approach the desk and check-in the regular way also.
Once you’ve checked in, you’ll be given a slip of paper with your room PIN printed on it. Take a photo of this, this is how you get into your room. The Knot Hotel doesn’t use keys, but every room has a keypad on the door to enter your PIN.
Amenities
The Knot Hotel doesn’t have a swimming pool or gym on site.
There’s a number of communal areas, such as a long workspace in the lobby, or a lounge on the first floor. I found myself awake at 4am with jetlag, so was very glad to have the lounge to go hang out in with my book while my husband slept.
There are also laundry rooms on the ground and first floors. They sell detergent from a vending machine. The washer and dryer are coin operated, so make sure you have cash on you as they don’t take card and there’s nowhere to break a note. I really appreciated the laundry facilities on our stay, it meant we could pack with less and wash our used clothes.
There’s a bar/restaurant at the entrance of the hotel. If you get the breakfast option, this is where it’ll be served, and at night, it turns into a dimly lit cocktail lounge. Also by the entrance is the MORETHAN bakery. The bakery runs from 08:00-18:00 and it’s so worth a visit. They have plenty of vegan options, and on Sundays, they run the “Sunday Vegan” days where everything in the bakery is vegan. If you go on the vegan day, get the potato bread – it’s literally a bread roll with a potato in the middle. It’s outstanding.
The Rooms
Where you’ll sleep
If you’re coming to The Knot Hotel expecting American-style room sizes, I’m going to stop you right there. Tokyo is a hugely densely populated city, and rooms here are small. I’ve stayed in three of their room sizes: 16sqm, 17sqm and 20sqm. With the first two, I barely noticed a difference in size, but the 20sqm does genuinely feel a lot roomier.
Regardless though, these rooms are designed for efficiency, not luxury. This is a place to sleep after a long day pounding the pavements of Tokyo, not a resort style room that you’ll want to lounge in on a lazy morning.
Function over Fashion
The space is tight. If you have many large suitcases, I see stubbed toes and profanities in your future. Each of the standard sized rooms has enough room for a double bed, usually with one side pushed against the wall, a small walkway, and a small space for a table/sofa arrangement.
There’s no wardrobe, but there are a couple of hangers on hooks by the door. My advice would be to take out the clothes you’re going to need for the duration of your stay, and stick the rest of your luggage as out of the way as you can make it.
However, what these rooms lack in floor area, they make up for in design. It’s clear that The Knot Hotel thought about how to maximise the space when they designed the rooms.
- The Bed
- The beds are high quality and comfortable, with enough room for two. Next to, or at the headboard of the bed, you’ll find USB charging ports and plug sockets. There’s a small recess for you to place your phone into, and there are knobs to turn off the room lights from the bed.
- Storage
- There’s no wardrobe, but there is usually a desk/table area, and there are hooks on the wall for you to hang some clothes.
- Soundproofing
- Despite being next to a main road in a busy part of town, the rooms are pretty quiet. You may hear some noise from other guests walking through the hallway chatting but this is minimal. I’m a light sleeper, so believe me, I’d tell you if the soundproofing was bad.
- Fridge and Seating
- Each room has a minifridge. It’s not a minibar, you’ll need to stock it yourself.
- Every room has some kind of seating. Some come with a “sofa”, although it’ll be a tight squeeze for two people, while others will have a chair. There’s usually a small table. This isn’t somewhere you could sit and do a comfortable day’s work, but for somewhere to sit for a late night Family Mart snack, it does the job.
Essentially, The Knot Hotel is a perfect central location if you’re just looking for a bed for the night and somewhere to leave your things during the day. It’s comfortable and compact, but if you’re staying in Tokyo for a longer period, or bringing more than two big suitcases with you, it’s not going to be the right fit for you.
A note on larger rooms
While most of The Knot Hotel’s standard rooms are 16-17sqm, they do have a limited number of larger rooms. On our third stay, we’d booked into a 20sqm room as it was the only one available. The difference between the 16 and 17 is negligible, but you really do notice the difference with the 20sqm. Each side of the bed has space next to it, and the table comes with two chairs. There’s plenty of space to move around, and this size room feels closer to a standard European style hotel room (although may still feel small to our American pals!).
There are fewer of these rooms, and they do cost a bit more than the smaller ones.
Bathroom and Toiletries
Each of the bedrooms in The Knot Hotel has an ensuite bathroom with a toilet and combined shower/bath. The bath is, like in many Japanese hotels, quite small in length but deeper than an average European bath. I’m 5ft2, so no worries there, but if you’re over about 5ft9, you may find it uncomfortable to stretch out your legs in the bath.
It also wouldn’t be a Tokyo hotel without the TOTO Washlet Toilet. I’ll be honest, I loathe the heated seat functionality – it just feels like someone else has been there for hours before you! But it’s a standard part of the design, as well as the built in spray settings. If you’ve never used one, you may even miss it when you get back home!
Bathrooms are clean and functional, but like the rest of the room, only big enough to fit the necessities. This isn’t somewhere to lay out your full cosmetics kit.
The Knot Hotel provides some basic toiletries such as shampoo, conditioner, shower gel and soap, as well as a toothbrush and mini toothpaste.
There are also slippers and robes provided in the room.
Food and Drink
During each of our stays, we only ate at the MORETHAN Bakery in the lobby, but the hotel is also home to the MORETHAN Tapas Lounge and MORETHAN Grill, if you’re around for lunch or dinner.
The bakery is famous in Shinjuku, and plenty of people who aren’t guests at The Knot Hotel will still swing by to pick up their morning pastries. If you’re visiting on a Sunday, the entire bakery goes 100% vegan. On every other day, it’s still incredibly vegan friendly, with options ranging from pre-made sandwiches to sweet treats like dougnuts and pastries, as well as truly gorgeous breads. Anything vegan will be clearly labelled, so no need to get Google Translate out here!
If you haven’t booked the hotel breakfast, the bakery still has everything you’ll need. Grab a few bits to take back to the room, or if it’s nice outside, head across the road to the Shinjuku Chuo Park for a slow morning picnic.
The bakery opens at 08:00, and by 09:00 is when it starts getting busy. There’s often a queue out the door, but it moves fairly quickly and it’s worth the wait. Once you’re inside, you pick up a metal tray and a pair of tongs, moving through the bakery and placing what you want on your tray. Then, you’ll take the tray to the counter, hand it over and pay while a member of staff parcels up your treats for you. They take card as well as cash, and the staff speak great English.
For dinner options, we didn’t eat in The Knot itself, but you can find some great restaurants around the Shinjuku and Shibuya areas. Read my Tokyo vegan ramen guide for some great suggestions!
The Bar
At night, the MORETHAN Tapas lounge turns into a low-lit cocktail bar, and serves drinks alongside the tapas. On our last night at The Knot Hotel, we popped in for a final drink before bed. I ordered sake, and the server told me about the traditional way of serving sake, in a glass inside a wooden box to catch the overflow. This is because to be a good host, you should “overfill” your guest’s glass, which spills into the wooden box. Once you finish what’s in your glass, you drink from the wooden box.
Final Verdict
As I’m sure you’ll have gathered by this point in the post, The Knot Hotel has become my go-to place in Tokyo. On one of my most recent stays earlier this year, jet lag had me awake at 5am. I found myself standing outside the hotel, on the phone to one of my brothers (it was only 8pm back in Ireland). I told him about how quiet the hotel was, how still Tokyo was in the early morning.
“It sounds like a scene from Lost in Translation” he told me.
“I’m actually looking at the hotel from Lost in Translation right now” I replied, looking up at the tall towers of the Park Hyatt, a short walk away.
While there was no Bill Murray character roaming the halls of The Knot Hotel to befriend, I grabbed a warm tea from the vending machine and took a seat in the first floor lounge to read for awhile. That’s the joy of this place. Despite the small room sizes, The Knot Hotel doesn’t feel at all claustrophobic. There are so many nooks and crannies to hang out in, whether that’s during the jetlagged dawn, the bustle of midday, or hiding out in the dimly lit bar at night.
Should you book it?
It’s one of the most affordable hotels in the area, and a lot cheaper than the Lost in Translation hotel (believe me, I checked). Shinjuku is a major tourist hotspot, and hotel prices usually reflect that. While you may find cheaper in a business hotel or a capsule hotel, The Knot Hotel would easily be my recommendation and preference. It feels like a stylish design hotel rather than just a nondescript place to rest your head. You can book your own stay here.
Book this hotel if:
- You want a cool atmosphere without a luxury price tag.
- You’re not bringing huge, multiple suitcases with you, or you’re okay with doing a bit of luggage origami.
- You want a great in-house bakery and value communal spaces.
- You want somewhere with laundry facilities.
- Your Tokyo stay is just for a few days.
- You want to be near Shinjuku station, but far enough away to actually sleep.
Skip this hotel if:
- You’re travelling with a lot of very large luggage, or you’d struggle with a smaller floor space.
- You want a large, American style bathroom.
- You’re planning an extended stay in Tokyo (I would personally only recommend The Knot Hotel for about 4 nights.)
- You want to be in the middle of the neon Kabukicho chaos.
For me, the tradeoff of the smaller room for the price point and the vibe of the hotel is a no-brainer. When I booked my second Japan trip, I immediately booked The Knot Hotel for our first three nights. I didn’t even bother asking my husband his opinion, I knew it would be an automatic yes. I was correct when, months later, he asked me in a panic “should we see if there’s a room at The Knot?”
Planning your Japan trip? Get all my Japan posts here.
A note: All photos on this site are mine, unless credited otherwise. Some images from The Knot’s website have been used for illustrative purposes.
