[Stay Review] Dinner Buffet at Hotel New Akao in Atami: About 90 Dishes!

This time I’d like to introduce the dinner buffet I had when I stayed at Hotel New Akao, perched on top of the sheer cliffs above Sagami Bay in Atami, Shizuoka.

Hotel New Akao has three restaurant venues: the restaurant “Bonheur,” the Japanese cuisine restaurant “Maiogi,” and the main dining room Nishiki.

Main Dining Nishiki is a sea-view theater restaurant with huge floor-to-ceiling windows, and I’d heard it serves a super lavish dinner buffet of about 90 items, but how is it in reality?

If you’re planning to stay and think “I don’t want to regret it!”, this is a must-read!!

Now, let’s get right into it.

Theater Restaurant “Main Dining Nishiki”

“Main Dining Nishiki” is a restaurant on the 2nd floor of the Ocean Wing of Hotel New Akao.

You’ll be overwhelmed by the enormous theater-style restaurant venue, glamorous and with a Showa retro feel.

I’ve stayed at many hotels in the past, but indeed, there’s no restaurant this big anywhere but New Akao!

Hotel New Akao has other restaurants that serve breakfast, but “Main Dining Nishiki” is the venue for the dinner and breakfast buffets.

They serve a lunch menu too.

Dinner hours are 17:00–21:30 with last entry at 20:00, and breakfast hours are 7:30–10:00 with last entry at 9:30.

*Prices shown are the lowest weekday rates for 2 guests with breakfast/dinner, before coupons or discounts. Please check the linked page for the latest information.

Superb Dinner: A Buffet of About 90 Dishes Using Local Ingredients

Dinner at Hotel New Akao is amazing! It offers about 90 dishes of Japanese, Western, and Chinese cuisine.

There’s a live corner in the center, with many dishes laid out in a fan shape around it.

Drinks are set up on both sides, so it’s best to use whichever is closer to your seat.

Salads

The salads include broccoli, onion, cherry tomatoes, red radish, macaroni and potato salad, and more.

The vegetables are of higher quality than the dinner buffets served at typical hotels!

Live Kitchen by the Head Chef

The head chef grills beef steak right in front of you.

He deftly puts it on small plates in advance, so it’s easy to pick up! Thank you.

If you eat it with wasabi, it looks incredibly delicious!!

A seafood Américaine ramen that looks a little spicy.

The Américaine here is, I see, the miso.

An original creative ramen that adds a French crustacean sauce to a rich miso ramen broth.

They really put thought into it.

Next, from the left: tempeh fry and freshly fried squid menchi-katsu. Freshly cooked fried foods.

Tempeh fry is fried tempeh, a fermented soybean food from Indonesia, and since you don’t get many chances to eat it, I’d like to try it.

There are plenty of other delicious dishes, so be careful not to take too many fried items.

Japanese, Western, and Chinese Menu

The appetizers are a sashimi kamaboko caprese and roasted onion marinade with tuna sauce.

Even for appetizers, they’re carefully made and look delicious!!

The appetizer menu is still extensive, with tsumire (fish ball) rillettes and a mushroom salad with yogurt sauce too.

There’s also cheese kamaboko, gizzard and mushroom marinated with yuzu pepper, shredded chicken and summer vegetables with wasabi dressing, lightly pickled celery, and Mishima broccoli pickled in kimchi style.

There are nutrient-rich dishes lined up too!

The seafood corner has sashimi and sushi.

Nice-looking lean red tuna.

Somehow it’s different from the lean tuna you get just anywhere. Could it be from the home of Mediterranean tuna?

There’s plenty of yellowtail (hamachi) sashimi too~.

By the way, it disappears at supersonic speed, so grab as much as you can.

Nigiri sushi that everyone loves.

It isn’t a live kitchen; it’s served already formed, but it’s fresh!

The nigiri is tuna and salmon with big toppings!

The sushi buffet alone would make me happy.

There’s also sautéed napa cabbage with roasted bacon.

Fried vegetables and squid in anchovy cream sauce.

Horse mackerel, clams, and potatoes steamed in white wine.

Shizuoka oden, a local dish of Shizuoka!

To think you can eat Shizuoka’s signature B-grade gourmet food at a dinner buffet.

Ingredients, each one on a skewer, simmer away bubbling.

Tempura of Mishima western-foothill vegetables.

Mishima western-foothill vegetables are grown at elevations of 50 m or more in areas of Mishima City such as Yamada to Yamanaka and Sano, and I hear that they’re shipped in large quantities to the Tokyo metropolitan area for their taste and quality.

Hmm hmm, I’ll take this one too.

From the left: grilled vegetables loaded with veggies, steamed vegetables, and oven-baked salted pork with potatoes.

Bread

Even at the dinner buffet, there is bread, though not many kinds.

From the left: croissant, chocolate Danish, and plain muffin.

Bread is also laid out at the breakfast buffet, so it can be a low priority.

Hardly anyone picked any up!

Kids’ Menu

Families can rest easy. The kids’ corner is well stocked too!

There are lots of dishes kids love, such as sweet baby dogs and smiley potatoes.

Meatballs and Napolitan spaghetti.

Among pastas, Napolitan is the biggest hit with kids, isn’t it~.

A heaping pile of fried chicken (karaage).

Be careful not to overeat!!

Desserts

The dessert corner is of course well stocked.

Lychee and grapefruit.

Lychees are in season from early spring to early summer, so seasonal fruits are always on display.

The oranges look fresh and delicious too.

Rich chocolate roll cake.

There are several other kinds of cake. They’re bite-sized and easy to eat.

Drinks

For soft drinks, choose the drink you like on the LCD touch panel and it pours automatically.

There’s a wide variety, including unusual soft drinks such as lemon squash, refreshing white grape, and lemonade.

This is a step-up drink bar too.

Alcohol is all-you-can-drink for an extra 2,500 yen!

It’s a glass-exchange system, and you place your order at the drink counter.

It’s a little disappointing that it’s self-service.

The all-you-can-drink menu is draft beer (Sapporo), Dewar’s highball, lemon sour, kyoho grape sour, Calpis sour, grapefruit sour, the Goddess drink, gin and tonic, gin buck, cassis orange, cassis soda, and cassis oolong.

Hotel New Akao also has hot springs and a sauna, so you should be careful with the all-you-can-drink alcohol.

Plate Examples

Drawn in by the size and freshness of the sushi toppings, I plated lots of seafood and a balanced mix of Shizuoka oden, salad, and more.

Centered on the tomato tofu, I plated small amounts of many side dishes around it.

Unlike buffets at other hotels, each dish is made with care, and it’s incredibly refined and delicious!!

Shizuoka oden is characterized by a dark broth and oden ingredients skewered on sticks.

The flavor soaks into the ingredients, and it’s just delicious!

Even with the big windows, it’s pitch dark outside at night so you can’t enjoy the view, but instead there’s live piano, so you can enjoy dinner while listening to music♪

It was an incredibly elegant dinner buffet.

*Prices shown are the lowest weekday rates for 2 guests with breakfast/dinner, before coupons or discounts. Please check the linked page for the latest information.