AQUA x IGNIS Kataoka Onsen

AQUA x IGNIS Kataoka Onsen is a comprehensive hot spring resort combining healing and cuisine, located in the Yunoyama Onsen area at the foot of the Suzuka Mountains in Komono Town, Mie Prefecture. Opened in October 2012, the facility was born when Tetsuya Tachibana, president of AQUA IGNIS Co., took over the former Kataoka Onsen that was on the verge of closure and transformed it into an entirely new concept resort. The expansive 49,000-square-meter grounds house establishments by some of Japan's most celebrated culinary masters: patissier Hironobu Tsujiguchi's sweets and stone-oven bakery, Italian chef Masayuki Okuda, and Japanese cuisine chef Masahiro Kasahara.

The water is classified as alkaline simple hot spring (low-tension, alkaline, high-temperature spring) with a pH of 8.5. The source temperature is 45.2 degrees Celsius with an abundant flow rate of 780 liters per minute from 1,200 meters underground. The natural hot spring water is provided as 100% free-flowing source water with absolutely no added water, heating, or circulation. The silky-smooth water carries a faint sulfur scent and is known as a beauty bath, prized for removing dead skin cells and cleansing pores.

The bathing facilities feature a spacious indoor bath with a beautiful mono-pitched Japanese cypress ceiling and an outdoor bamboo grove bath surrounded by lush bamboo forest. The modern, refined spatial design allows bathers to feel nature's energy while soaking. Day-trip bathing is available for 600 yen on weekdays and 800 yen on weekends and holidays, from 6:00 to 24:00, open year-round. The resort also offers accommodation wings and organic detached lodges, all equipped with private open-air baths fed by the same free-flowing source water.