#tokyo bars

Kanpai!

Outside the Wine Bar in

Golden Gai | My Favorite Spot.

Kinkuro Soda with your Sweet Potato Shouchu?

Only ¥600.

On the first day of our company retreat in Japan, the Tofugu team went out to dinner in Ginza, Tokyo. After our meal, Koichi, Viet, Aya, Jamal, and I wanted to stay out later… jet lag be damned. On Viet's recommendation, we headed to a tiny establishment with a giant reputation: Bar Orchard.

Bar Orchard often pops up on lists of "Best Bars in Tokyo" and "Best Bars in Asia." It reflects years of hard work by owners Miyanohara Takuo and his wife, Sumire. Their story goes like this: all his life, Takuo had wanted to be a bartender. It was a profession that isn't exactly encouraged in Japan, but he kept at it, training first as a sommelier at the Hotel Okura Kobe and then working extra shifts behind the bar to learn the trade. Concurrently he was developing what would eventually become his signature creations: cocktails made with fresh fruit. This was in the early 2000s, when classic drinks were all the rage, but he persevered, perfecting his concoctions and serving them to Okura's waitstaff, who loved them and recommended them to their customers.

His fanbase grew, and it wasn't long before Takuo was winning bartending competitions and awards. But he had a second goal: he and Sumire, a bartender herself, dreamed of opening a cocktail bar in Ginza, the most competitive place for bartenders in all of Japan. If they wanted to be the best, they would have to prove it in ritzy Ginza.

And so, in 2007, he and Sumire opened Bar Orchard, specializing in original, dazzlingly creative cocktails. And here we were, some of us for the first time, stepping from a tiny elevator into a beautiful room that barely held fifteen people. Luckily, a large group was leaving, so we got seated right away.

Todoroki Second Avenue

The Izakaya in Nakameguro That I Wanna Visit

Nakameguro, Tokyo

(Rakuzen is the name, I think.)

Come on In:

He said to me on a recent Friday night. Not wanting to spend the evening alone, I accepted.