Eat, drink, travel Japan.
Sake breweries in Fushimi, whisky bars behind unmarked doors, izakaya nights in Shinjuku. What each costs, what’s in the glass, and where to book. Pull up a stool.
Seven nights that earn their bar tab.
First trip or fifth, start here. The Shinjuku crawl with three and a half thousand reviews behind it, an izakaya walk that feeds you at four different counters, the kind of evening people plan whole trips around.
Tokyo Bar Hopping Tour in Shinjuku (All-You-Can-Drink + Dinner)
Small-group Shinjuku bar hop with 3 secret-feeling izakaya stops, all-you-can-drink, snack plates, and guide-led local know-how.
From $106 per person
Read the review →
★ 5.0Safe betBest of Shinjuku: Izakaya Food Tour (4 Stops, 14+ Tastings)From $921,863 reviews
★ 4.9Books out fastTokyo: Shinjuku Local Bar and Izakaya Guided Walking TourFrom $341,794 reviews
★ 5.0Crowd favouriteShibuya Meltdown Nightlife Tour: All-You-Can-Drink Bar HoppingFrom $1061,058 reviews
★ 5.0Regulars approve1-Day Snow Monkeys, Zenko-ji Temple & Sake in NaganoFrom $1511,020 reviews
★ 5.0Easy winOsaka Bar Hopping Night Walking Tour in Namba (3 bars, 6 tastes)From $98958 reviews
★ 4.5Worth the yenTokyo: Pub Crawl and Bar TourFrom $27951 reviews
Go where the sake is made.
Kyoto’s Fushimi district and the Nada belt outside Kobe brew more sake than the rest of the country combined, and the kura doors open for visitors most mornings. Cellar walks, tasting flights, and a working answer to what junmai actually means. These are the brewery visits worth the train fare.
Where should your first izakaya night happen?
Every city drinks a little differently, and the first night sets the tone for the trip. Three ways in. Pick the one that sounds like your kind of evening.
Neon and noise
Shinjuku, Tokyo
from $106 · 3,587 reviews
Omoide Yokocho’s grill smoke, Golden Gai’s six-seat bars, and a guide who knows which doors open for visitors. The loudest possible introduction to Japanese drinking, and the easiest one to book.
See Shinjuku nights →
Kushikatsu country
Namba, Osaka
from $98 · 958 reviews
Osaka drinks with its sleeves rolled up. Standing bars in Namba, kushikatsu with the no-double-dip rule, highballs that land before you’ve found your seat. Cheaper than Tokyo and proud of it.
See Osaka nights →
Lantern-lit
Pontocho, Kyoto
from $84 · 917 reviews
One narrow alley along the Kamo River, lanterns end to end, counters behind wooden doors. Kyoto pours smaller and closes earlier than the big two, so book the early crawl and keep your evening.
See Kyoto nights →
Drink the whisky where it lives.
Bottles that fetch collector prices abroad still sit on Tokyo back bars at pour prices. A Hibiki flight beside a charcoal-grilled skewer, a members-only room that opens with the right booking, the Yoichi distillery a train ride from Sapporo. Bring curiosity, not a checklist.
Read before you drink.
Long reads from the ground: how to decode a sake label, why the highball conquered the country, what kakuuchi drinking actually is. The background that makes every bar in Japan more interesting.
Drinking CultureHow to Read a Japanese Sake LabelYou're standing in the basement of a department store in Shinjuku, holding a bottle of sake by the neck, and…
Drinking CultureDrinking Highballs in Japan, From Chain to CraftIn late 2008, a struggling whisky brand started a campaign that would, within 12 months, see the number of Japanese…
Drinking CultureKakuuchi Is Not an IzakayaI walked into a kakuuchi in Kokura with the wrong instincts. I tried to take a stool I'd seen empty,…
Drinking CultureHow Cheap Drinking Gets in Japan, and Stays GoodA tall chu-hi can at any 7-Eleven, 9% alcohol, lemon, ice-cold, costs ¥180. The same volume of beer at a…
Drinking CultureWhat to Drink at an Onsen Ryokan, and WhenThe first sound is the knock of the wooden bath bucket against the stone rim, and then the slow tip…
CitiesHow to Eat and Drink Your Way Through KanazawaThe bowl came down on the counter at Amatsubo just before nine on a wet March evening, kaisendon piled until…
From 11 breweries to 700 and counting.
Japan changed its brewing law in 1994 and hasn’t stopped opening taprooms since. Brewery floors in Sapporo where the beer built the city, tap crawls through Tokyo backstreets, and pale ales that stand up to anything from Portland. The story tastes better on site.
Pick a city, follow the lanterns.
Tokyo for the sheer choice, Osaka for the appetite, Kyoto for the atmosphere, Sapporo because beer built the place. Seven cities, each with its own drinking hours.
Twelve kinds of night (and morning).
Tastings, crawls, classes, cellar visits. Choose the shape of the evening and every option behind it is already reviewed and priced.
Three cities, three nights, one happy liver.
You can’t drink all of Japan in one trip. You can absolutely drink the right three nights of it. This is the order we’d hand a friend landing at Haneda tomorrow.
Night 1
Start loud in Shinjuku
Land, nap, then follow a guide through Omoide Yokocho while the jet lag still feels like courage. Yakitori smoke, a first highball, an early finish.
Plan the Tokyo night →
Night 2
Slow down in Pontocho
A Fushimi brewery in the morning while your head is clear, lanterns along the alley after dark. Kyoto pours smaller and closes earlier. That’s the charm.
Plan the Kyoto night →
Night 3
Finish hungry in Namba
Kushikatsu, standing bars, a second dinner you didn’t plan. Osaka is where you stop counting drinks and start counting skewers.
Plan the Osaka night →
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