Eirakukan

The Layout of Eirakukan

Eirakukan (栄楽館) is a former ryotei, a traditional Japanese restaurant with private dining rooms, in Ueno Aioicho, Iga City, Mie Prefecture; it opened as a restaurant in 1873, and four of its structures, the South Building, East Building, Storehouse, and Gate and Wall, were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2014. Iga City owns the property, and since 2020 it has served as the KANMURI wing of NIPPONIA HOTEL Iga Ueno Jokamachi, a hotel whose rooms are spread across several old buildings in the castle town.

Read together, the Agency for Cultural Affairs descriptions give a clear plan. The north edge of the Eirakukan lot meets the street, and that edge is closed by the gate and wall, with the gate set toward the west end. The East Building stands in the northeast part of the lot with its ridge running north to south. The South Building sits further back near the southern edge, and the storehouse tucks into the southeast corner of the South Building.

From the street you see only a tiled wall on a stone base and a small gate. The two-storey buildings that held the dining rooms stay out of sight, and the East Building's verandas look out through glazed windows onto the garden. Eirakukan reads as a restaurant compound turned inward toward its garden.

A History of Eirakukan

According to Iga City's list of registered properties, Eirakukan began as the premises of an Edo-period wholesaler of herbal medicines. The building was remodeled and opened in 1873 as a ryotei called Eirakutei. The national database gives 1873 as the date for all four registered structures. The city's note adds that the lyricist Noguchi Ujo and the composer Nakayama Shinpei, a pair behind many well-loved children's songs and popular tunes, are said to have spent evenings here.

The restaurant closed in 1983, and for a time the building was the owner's home. It was later donated to Iga City and, after renovation, reopened in May 1995 as a community learning center. The renovation date of 1994 recorded in the database for the South Building, East Building and storehouse belongs to that work.

After registration in 2014, Eirakukan became the anchor of a city program that turns vacant historic buildings in the old castle town into guest rooms and shops. A report by Iga City's auditors describes the conversion to an inn, carried out from November 2019 to March 2020. The exterior was to be kept in its original form as a rule, and the interior fittings were to be preserved as far as possible. At that time the facility was a 2-storey timber building with 286.31 square meters on the ground floor and 173.67 square meters upstairs.

The hotel opened on November 1, 2020. The city explained that the wing name KANMURI comes from one of the braiding patterns of Iga kumihimo, the local silk cord craft. The sources do not agree on one point: the city and NIPPONIA give the restaurant's old trading name as Eirakutei, while the hotel's own site calls it the Eirakukan inn.

The Four Registered Structures of Eirakukan

The four Eirakukan structures were entered together as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on April 25, 2014, under consecutive registration numbers 24-0173 to 24-0176. All four were registered as structures that contribute to the historic landscape of the country.

• Eirakukan South Building: 1873, renovated 1994. 2-storey timber building with a tiled roof, building area 111 square meters
• Eirakukan East Building: 1873, renovated 1994. 2-storey timber building with a tiled roof, building area 109 square meters
• Eirakukan Storehouse: 1873, renovated 1994. 2-storey Dozo-zukuri storehouse with a tiled roof, building area 24 square meters
• Eirakukan Gate and Wall: 1873. Timber gate with a tiled roof, 1.8 meters wide; earthen wall with a tiled roof, 14 meters in total length

The city's description mentions fan and bamboo motifs inside Eirakukan and craftwork that changes from room to room, including woven wickerwork ceilings. The national descriptions point to a different showpiece in each structure: bamboo and fans in the South Building's transoms and railings, a curved log used as the alcove post in the East Building's upstairs hall, the drum-pattern plaster on the storehouse, and cloud-shaped ornament along the top of the wall. The habit of surprising a restaurant guest carries across every building type on the lot.

Visiting Eirakukan

Eirakukan is in use as hotel rooms and a restaurant, and the official site lists no tours or general opening (checked October 2026). The KANMURI wing has three guest rooms, numbered 101 to 103. To go inside you need to stay in one of them or eat at LE UN, the restaurant that operates within Eirakukan.

LE UN serves lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. (last order 2:00 p.m.) on weekends and public holidays only, and dinner from 5:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. (last order 8:00 p.m.). Closing days are irregular, and reservations are taken through the hotel's official site. There is no dedicated parking for restaurant-only visitors.

As of October 2026 the hotel's front desk is at 3377 Ueno Nishimachi, and the official site puts the Eirakukan rooms an 8-minute walk away. Free parking for hotel guests is at 3011-2 Ueno Nakamachi, with room for 6 cars.

The part of Eirakukan that anyone can see from the street is the gate and wall along the north edge of the lot. The nearest station is Uenoshi on the Iga Railway Iga Line; measured from map coordinates, Eirakukan lies south of the station, about 400 meters away in a straight line. The official site sets out no photography rules, so keep any exterior photos considerate of guests coming and going.