Hotels near Kenzan

Kanazawa is one of Japan’s great craft cities, a status it earned under the patronage of the Maeda family, who spent their vast wealth on arts rather than warfare. The city produces 99% of Japan’s gold leaf - an art requiring over 20 stages of hand-hammering gold into sheets thinner than human hair. Kutani ware is Kanazawa’s bold, five-coloured porcelain tradition, with distinctive red, green, yellow, blue, and purple overglaze designs. Kaga Yuzen is one of Japan’s most prized silk dyeing traditions.

All three crafts can be experienced hands-on in the city: try gold leaf application at Hakuza Gold Leaf Store or Gold Leaf Sakuda (both in Higashi Chaya District); paint Kutani porcelain at the Yamashiro Onsen Kutani Museum in nearby Kaga city; and see Kaga Yuzen dyeing at the Kaga Yuzen Tradition Hall. Gold leaf ice cream is the most-photographed Kanazawa food item - soft-serve vanilla ice cream coated in a large sheet of edible 24-carat gold leaf (~¥800).