The Osaka Geihinkan is a working state guest house. Japan built it in 1995, inside the Nishinomaru Garden at Osaka Castle, for the leaders arriving for the APEC summit, and used it again in 2019 for the G20 Osaka Summit dinner. When you book it, you get the whole building. The site was chosen for the view. From the garden the castle keep stands almost directly ahead, framed by cherry trees that flower at the start of April. Inside, the main banquet room reproduces the White Drawing Room at Nijo Castle in Kyoto, down to the orikage coffered ceiling, the kind that used to signal the rank of whoever was sitting under it. The kitchen cooks French using Osaka ingredients: heirloom Naniwa vegetables, local A5 wagyu. Halal and allergy menus are standard here rather than a favour. One detail guests tend to remember. There is a gate called the Korai-mon that the public never uses. For banquets it is opened, so cars come in that way and stop at the door rather than at the park entrance. It is the same arrival a visiting head of state gets. Live music, a receiving line, whatever else the evening needs, can be built around that.