Kagaya has taken first place in Japan's professional ryokan poll some 42 times. That is the judgment of its peers, repeated, rather than the verdict of a single jury. The house stands at the water's edge on Nanao Bay, and what a guest needs arrives before the guest has spoken; behind every gesture sits a system of service refined over decades. It is the furthest point this craft has reached.
The rest has to be said plainly. The Noto Peninsula earthquake of New Year's Day 2024 struck Wakura Onsen hard. Kagaya closed after the damage, and the four existing buildings — which between them carried the record of 36 consecutive years at number one, a run that ended with the 42nd poll in 2017 — are all to be demolished. Under the announcement of August 1, 2025, a new wing of about 40 rooms is planned on the former Matsunomidori site, targeted to open at the end of the 2027 fiscal year. Nothing here can be booked now. This is a name walking its way back, and one to keep on the calendar.