Eat, drink, travel Japan.
Where to drink in Japan — izakayas, neighbourhood bars, themed bars.
It’s 21:30 on a Wednesday inside Bar Benfiddich, four floors up a Nishi-Shinjuku building with no English sign. Hiroyasu Kayama, the bar’s owner, is crushing fresh wormwood with a brass pestle to garnish someone else’s drink. In front of me sits a Yoichi 12, neat, with the kind of hand-cut ice ball that costs the … Read more
The bartender at Bar Lupin in Ginza doesn’t speak. He carves a cube of ice into a sphere, sets it in a chilled coupe, pours a clear liquid over it, and the sphere rotates once, twice, then settles. The whole bar smells of cold lemon peel and old wood. Down a basement stair under the … Read more
I poured my own beer first, knocked back a long swallow before anyone else had a glass in hand, and watched the proprietor at a small Yurakucho counter freeze for about half a second. Long enough that I noticed. Short enough that he was already smiling again by the time the next person sat down. … Read more