Curving wood-covered walls define rooms within – a lounge, study and open-plan kitchen-diner at ground level and two bedrooms above.

A two-storey window cut through it provides views across the city from a split-level living room on the third floor and a combined kitchen-diner on the level below.

When a vegetarian diner arrives, the hotel's Japanese owner, Hiromi Yasui, runs back to the kitchen to whip up a dish of spinach, garlic and steamed rice.