Imperial Hotel Osaka

Founded in the year 1890 at the direction of the imperial palace, Tokyo's legendary Imperial Hotel boasts a history as colorful and dramatic as contemporary Japan itself. From its very first days, The Imperial set the stage for the introduction into Japan of the latest in western technologies, culture and traditions of hospitality. The original, wooden Victorian-style Imperial, across the avenue from the Emperor's palace on the same site the hotel occupies today, was for many decades the only fully European-style hotel in the capital. It ran in debt for many years offering visiting dignitaries and industry leaders from abroad a reassuring array of familiar facilities and services, including expensive American beds outfitted with fine Irish linens, English sterling silver cutlery, rare French wines, wood-burning fireplaces and the country's first hotel dining room to serve beef and pork, four-legged animals that Buddhist precepts had traditionally forbidden for consumption.