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The Main Types of Drinking Establishments

The first and perhaps the biggest obstacle to exploring Japan’s drinking districts is just getting through the right doors. The best bars are not always the ones that you can see into from the street, and it takes a bit of courage to dive into an unfamiliar establishment with no clear idea of what it sells and how much it charges. Here is a bestiary of the most common types of pubs and bars and some tips on how to identify them.

Izakaya 居酒屋

The three most useful Japanese characters for anybody going drinking in Japan are 居酒屋 for izakaya. The word is probably best translated as “Japanese pub.”

Historically, izakaya seem to have evolved in the 18th century out of alcohol shops that began to sell food and provide seating to customers who wanted to drink on the premises, but nowadays there is as much diversity among izakaya as there is among Western pubs. Some izakaya are very friendly, some are not; many are cheap, but others are trendily expensive. A few are just grim. In general, though, a sign for an izakaya fairly reliably indicates a shop where the main business is food and drink, rather than, say, female friendship (see below). There is usually an entrance charge, but it is often relatively low compared to the more exclusive bars (see page 26).

You will be expected to order a little food to go with your drink. Many of the dishes on the menu will be small otsumami intended to be eaten while drinking. Here are some fairly standard options:

Edamame (boiled soy beans in the pod). A tasty, cheap and commonly available snack.

Yakitori (grilled skewered chicken).

Hiyayakko (cold, fresh tofu). This often comes with fish flakes, so the edamame are a more reliable vegetarian option.

Shiokara (fermented seafoods). A lot more challenging than the previous three options, but a classic Japanese drinking food nonetheless

Izakaya will often have a red lantern outside called an akachōchin. Unfortu-nately, not all shops that have red lanterns are izakaya, so it is good to be able to recognize the Japanese characters.

Other pub-like establishments

There are a number of other Japanese words that are either used interchangeably with izakaya or are very close in meaning to it. The situation is similar to the overlapping meanings of ”pub,” “bar,” “inn” and “tavern” in English. Sometimes izakaya-like establishments will sign themselves as 酒場 (sakaba or “alcohol place”) or 飲み屋 (nomiya or “drinking shop”), which is sometimes written as 呑み屋). The words sakaba and nomiya seem to have slightly wider ranges of meaning than izakaya, encompassing bars without the food menu you would expect in an izakaya, but there is no reliable distinction.

The Kanayama Johnny shōchū bar in Hiroshima (page 95) allows customers to serve themselves from the hundreds of bottles lining the walls. Waitress Asaka Kōno, shown here, says dishonesty is rare.

There is another sub-set of Japanese pubs describing themselves as立ち飲み屋 (tachinomiya or “standing drinking shop”) or スタン丁 イングノ乂—(sutandingu bar or “standing bar”). These places, as their names suggest, serve drinks to standing customers. The English and Japanese versions of the name are applied fairly indiscriminately, although more modern-styled places, serving wines and posh sakes, are more likely to be sutandingu bars while traditional drinking stands tracing their roots back to the post-war years are more likely to be tachinomi.

Pubs パブ

When I first arrived in Japan, I used to walk around looking for “pubs” on the theory that I knew what they were. It is not as simple as that. In Japan, the word “pub” can refer to various types of drinking establishments, not all of which serve reasonably priced drinks. There are “English pubs” and “Irish pubs” offering exactly what you might expect, but there are also “sexy pubs” that sell something else. All sorts of legitimate izakaya, bars and “snacks” also use the word. It is usually obvious when you are dealing with a legitimate drinking establishment but the general advice is not to regard the word “pub” as a guarantee of something familiar.

The English used on Japanese bar signs does not always carry the same meaning it would back home. Clockwise from top left: an “emotional bar” in Takadanobaba, Tōkyō; a “snack” in Toshima, Tōkyō; a “sexy pub” in Shinjuku, Tōkyō; and a jazz bar in Setagaya, Tōkyō.

Bars バー

The word “bar” has as many meanings as “pub.” Many of the places featured in this guide call themselves “bars” but there are also hostess bars and snacks that go under the name. There is so much variation that any generalization is going to run into contradictions, but for me an archetypal Japanese “bar” tends to put much less emphasis on food than an izakaya does. The barman or woman is much more likely to be serving from behind a bar top, will probably be offering Western drinks of some description (although there are also sake and shōchū bars), and is likely to be charging a heftier entrance charge than your average izakaya.

“Snack” スナック

The “snack” is a peculiarly Japanese institution. It is typically a small bar run by a woman. Part of the attraction for customers can be the conversation with the mama-san, although, in many places, couples will go to a snack and treat it as their local bar. Originally, snacks emerged out of regulations that forbade hostess bars from opening late at night. Women running snacks could argue that they were doing bar work and not hostessing, which allowed later hours. It is a misunderstanding to see all snacks as sleazy operations. Most are not. However, you are usually paying in some way for the personal attention— either through some sort of entrance charge or a relatively expensive food dish that you are expected to accept. These charges are often higher than in a standard izakaya. A snack is never, as I mistakenly thought on arriving in Japan, a cheap place to go for a bite to eat.

Soba restaurants, oden stalls, etc.

For the Japanese, drinking and eating go together and there are many types of restaurants that are associated with alcohol. Two of the more classic choices are soba restaurants and oden stalls (see page 64). Soba (そば) shops, serving buckwheat noodle dishes, are traditional places for daytime tippling. A glass of sake, shōchū or beer with your noodles is quite the done thing. Drinking too much, though, is seriously uncool. Oden (おでん), an assortment of vegetables, fish cakes and eggs cooked in a light soy-flavored stew, is another time-honored drinking food and the best places to try it are the rickety outdoor stalls set up in some parks. They usually serve cheap sake, shōchū and beer. The modern preference is for drinking with various types of grilled meat. The drinking quarters are full of yakiniku (焼肉 or 焼き肉, grilled meat); horumonyaki (ホソレモン焼き, beef and pork offal); gyūtan (牛タン, grilled beef tongue), Mongolian barbecue (using lamb and mutton and often referred to as Jingisu Kan (ジン 干スカン)), as well as Korean barbecue restaurants.

The law

Drinking age

The minimum legal drinking age in Japan is 20.

Disorderly behavior

The Law to Prevent Drunk and Disorderly Conduct (1961) empowers the Japanese police to arrest people for disorderly speech or behavior in public places.

Drunk driving

Anybody who tells you that Japan is lax on drunk drivers is seriously ill-informed. It now has some of the strictest drunk driving laws in the world. You can be imprisoned or heavily fined not only for drunk driving yourself but for being in a car with a drunk driver, lending a car to someone who has been drinking or serving alcohol to a driver. Enforcement is highly effective: police routinely block roads and test everyone who comes by. You don’t have to be driving irregularly to get caught.

The legal limit is less than .03 blood alcohol content, which is significantly lower than in many countries; one small beer will get some people over that limit. Indeed, one Western executive was taken to court for driving the morning after drinking. The maximum sentence is five years in prison and a fine of 1,000,000 yen. Although the sentences will not be that tough for most drink drivers, it is worth remembering that Japanese law routinely enforces large compensation payments upon people who cause harm to others or damage to property on the road. If you are under the influence, you will almost certainly be judged to be at fault, and that could mean life-ruining debts.

Emergency service telephone numbers

110—Police

119—Ambulance

Kimiko Satō, owner of Juttoku, Shinjuku, Tōkyō (page 58), pours sake for customers.

Pouring for others

It is customary when drinking in a group in Japan to pour other people’s drinks, and it is polite to wait for others in the group to pour yours. This may sound overly formal to the uninitiated, but can be a great way for foreigners having difficulty with the language to interact and make friends. I have known this custom to be used to strike up conversations with people in adjoining groups too. If you want to be really polite, pour while holding the bottle in two hands and hold your glass in two hands when receiving. If possible, try to accept drinks offered by people in the group who have not poured for you and swiftly pick up the bottle and pour for them (in many cases, people are pouring because they want their glass refilled). None of these drinking customs should be taken as being set in stone. Plenty of people pour their own drinks in group situations. In general, it is not the done thing to drink directly from bottles, although there are young people’s hangouts where this is de rigueur. Where a glass is provided, it is best to use it.

Cautionary notes

Drinking too much

Drinking in a new environment has a way of making idiots out of people. Familiar cues that rein in excessive drinking are not present. Bars in Japan, for instance, open very late compared to many pubs in the UK, where I come from. British people often start drinking quite early in the evening, forgo food and drink at a breakneck pace because they are used to pubs closing between 11 and 12 pm. This kind of approach is likely to lead to embarrassment (or worse) in a drinking culture where many bars are still serving drinks at 4 am. The hazards will vary depending where you come from, but it is a good idea to take a conservative approach until you get your bearings.

“Kampai!”

Many Japanese drinking sessions will start with a toast and it is polite not to start gulping until the customary loud chorus of Kampai! Another drinking exclamation is Banzai!, which is far less popular than it once was but is still occasionally heard near the climax of an evening, particularly at company parties. Banzai does not mean that everybody present is about to fix bayonets, as some aficionados of John Wayne films may mistakenly believe. It literally means “10,000 years” and toasts the emperor’s long life (or, indeed, the longevity and prosperity of other, non-Emperor related pursuits).

The use of Kampai and Banzai as drinking toasts appears to be a relatively new phenomenon. Wherever there are drinkers there is always going to be someone who thinks a few words goes well with the first glass (see otōri, page 120) but it was the arrival of Western diplomats in the Meiji period (1868–1912) that formalized Japanese toasts. The foreigners were forever toasting their kings and presidents and so, not to be outdone, the Japanese representatives started shouting alcohol Banzais to the emperor. Later, in the 1910s and 1920s, Kampai! (from the Chinese exhortation Kampei!, “Drain your glass”) began to establish itself as a less Emperor-centric alternative to Banzai!

Another major cause of stomach-heaving futsukayoi (hangovers) is unfamiliarity with the alcohol being consumed. Sake is one of the world’s strongest brewed beverages. Knocking it back like beer will end in disaster. If the clear liquid you have been poured is shōchū, a distilled spirit weighing in at anything from 25 to 40 percent alcohol, you really need to be sipping, not gulping. Even some of the craft beer bars recommended in Chapter 4 can catch you off guard: a 9 percent Special Brown Ale from Hakusekikan, for instance, is a very different beast from a 4.7 percent London Pride.

Japanese drinking customs can sometimes push you into drinking too much. As I mentioned on page 23, it is common to pour drinks for other people in a group and you can find your glass being filled fairly constantly. In some circumstances, fellow drinkers may ask you to drink up before they pour for you. It is difficult to offer general advice on what to do in this sort of situation, because it really depends on who you are drinking with and how intoxicated they are, but three points to remember are: (1) You do not have to empty the glass before someone pours for you. It is very common indeed to take a small sip and offer a half or even three-quarters full glass to be topped up. (2) If you have had enough, it is not rude to say so (Kekko desu—“I’m fine”). (3) The custom of pouring drinks is supposed to be about shared conviviality. If you are feeling pressurized to drink more than you want, then the pourers are making the faux pas, not you.

Drinking in public

Legal restrictions on drinking in public are looser in Japan than in many countries, but social codes in this area are actually less forgiving. The general view is that food or drink should be properly appreciated while sitting down and that it is vulgar to walk around stuffing your face. The omnipresence of convenience stores and vending machines is starting to break down these social expectations among certain groups, but it is still crass to walk down a road swigging beer.

A yakitori (grilled chicken) restaurant in Shinjuku, Tōkyō. Grilled meats of various sorts, ranging from yakitori to grilled beef tongue, are popular drinking foods in modern Japan.

There are times when it is acceptable to drink in public places. Part of what is special about matsuri (festivals), hanabi (fireworks displays) and hanami (flower viewing picnics) is that the normal restrictions on the street can be transgressed.

Practicalities

Tsukidashi, otōshi and other entrance fees

Entrance charges are a source of much misunderstanding between foreign customers and the bars that levy them. Most bars in Japan have an entrance fee and many charge this fee by giving a small dish of food—called a tsukidashi or an otōshi—that has not been ordered by the customer but is put on the bill. This is not a sneaky way of separating you from your money. It is built into the pricing of most Japanese bars, and all Japanese customers expect it.

The original theory behind these snacks was that any order of food would take some time to be made, so the tsukidashi was a pre-prepared dish that would keep customers happy while they waited (this illustrates how important food is to drinking for many Japanese people). Nowadays, tsukidashi or otōshi are best regarded simply as a charge. In most places, it is going to cause more hassle than it is worth to attempt to refuse the dish.

From the point of view of foreigners who are unfamiliar with the practice, the fact that a dish is provided actually seems to cause more aggravation than if nothing were given at all. The misunderstanding most often occurs when customers find the otōshi on their bill, think it is a mistake because they did not order it and ask for the charge to be subtracted, only to be met with incomprehension and apparent defiance from their previously friendly hosts. Atsushi Horigami at Bar Zoetrope (page 190) says: “I had a Dutchman in here who got quite angry about it. He said I was a thief and threatened to call the police!”

One way to get one’s head around these charges, particularly relevant to drinkers from the United States, is to see them as substitutes for tips. It is not normal to tip in Japanese bars or restaurants. If you stay in a bar for any length of time, the 500–1,000 yen usually levied through the tsukidashi will often be equivalent to or less than what you might have paid the barman or waiter as a tip. You can always inquire on entering a bar how much the charge is: Tsukidashi wa oikura desu ka? (“How much is the tsukidashi?”).

Drinking in an unfamiliar environment can be hazardous. Sake is one of the world’s strongest brewed beverages and bars in Japan open later than in many other countries.

Credit cards

An increasing number of Japanese bars and restaurants now accept credit cards, but Japan is still very much a cash society. It is safest to assume that credit cards will not be taken. I have tried to indicate which bars do take cards in the guide, but I have not been able to give a detailed list of precisely which cards are accepted in each establishment. If you are planning to use a credit card, you really need to find out if you are going to be able to use it before ordering: Kono credit card wa daijōbu desu ka? (“Is this credit card OK?”)

Holidays

I have tried to provide accurate information on the opening hours of bars and on the days or periods when they will be closed. However, there are two times of year when almost all of Japan closes down: New Year (December 29–January 5; most businesses close between January 1–3) and Obon (middle of August, though some regions celebrate it in July). You can assume that most of the bars included in this guide will be shut for at least some days during these periods. I have not specified these holidays on every bar listing to avoid repetition, and also because the bars often change which particular days they take off from year to year.

To clarify the rather vague dates for Obon: the festival is held on the 13th to 15th day of the 7th month of the year. Unfortunately, the conversion from the old lunar calendar to the modern calendar is done differently in different areas and, since Obon is about returning to your family home, that means lots of people in the cities work on different timetables. There is no national holiday, but businesses do tend to give staff leave. Some people return home between August 13 and 15, some between July 13 and 15 and some according to the old lunar calendar, which hits a different date every year. The August dates are the big ones: any visit between August 8 and 16 is likely to be affected by Obon.

Costs

Japan has a reputation for being expensive. In truth, it really depends on when you come to the country and how your home country’s currency is doing against the yen at the time. When I first arrived in Japan, the yen was weak and the conversion I got used to at that time made Japanese prices seem pretty reasonable. When I began researching this guide, the yen was stronger and therefore costs seemed higher, though still fairly acceptable. The subsequent collapse of the dollar and the pound against the yen made almost all prices seem frightening for a while. The situation will almost certainly have changed again by the time you read this.

Shōchū Bar Gen, Shibuya, Tōkyō (page 107).

Bottle keep

Some bars in Japan provide a service called botoru kiipu (“bottle keep”). The customer buys a whole bottle of alcohol but does not have to drink it in one sitting. Instead, it is marked with a name and kept at the bar for the customer’s next visit. Nowadays, the bottle is bought from the bar itself, but botoru kiipu has its roots in the 1950s, when some drinkers would bring their own bottles to bars, pay a corkage and return to drink the contents over many sittings. In those days it was hard for some bars to get good whisky, but they offered their customers a pleasant atmosphere, proper glassware and ice. Suntory’s tremendously successful Torys Bar chain adopted the idea (but insisted that you had to buy their whisky), and helped spread the practice across the country. In most bars, the price of the bottle should work out slightly cheaper than buying by the glass. A good rule of thumb is to expect the bottle to cost about 10 times the price of a single shot.

There are bars in this guide that are expensive, but I have made an effort to include a good number of cheaper bars in every section. In general, if you are traveling on a budget, a willingness to try indigenous alcohols like awamori, shōchū and, to a lesser extent, sake will throw up more bargains than foreign imports like whisky, beer and wine.

The Watami chain has more than 600 outlets across Japan.

Chain pubs

There are a growing number of chain izakaya in Japan. Independent bar owners complain such chains are squeezing out the little men. Few of them offer the range of alcohols offered by the best independent establishments, and the quality of the service is often noticeably worse. If you are near an independent izakaya, I would recommend giving it a try before trooping into the chain. However, it has to be admitted that the ubiquity of the chains can offer reassurance in an unfamiliar location. Some relatively small chains like Kaasan, Himonoya and Komahachi have found their way into this guide on their own merits, but the most successful izakaya chain in Japan is Watami, with more than 600 outlets. It is not at all bad and is definitely worth considering as a back-up. The drink list is not particularly extensive, but there is always some high-quality sake and shōchū available. I have noticed some good Japanese whisky creeping onto the menu in the last couple of years. Watami styles itself as a “family friendly” izakaya and my wife says she often opts for Watami over the more atmospheric independent bars if she is having a drink on her own out of town. The interiors are usually open and well lit, and there is a slightly more anonymous feel to these places, which she says lends itself to having a quiet drink and bite to eat as a solitary woman. The group uses various logos for different parts of its chain, but look out for its name: Watami (わたみ or 和民).

Read more

The more I have studied Japanese alcohol, the more I have realized that it is not possible to do justice to the topic in a single volume. There are dozens of bars and many topics that I would have liked to have covered here but which had to be chopped out in the final edit. The following English language sources will take you further:

Books

The Sake Handbook by John Gauntner (Tuttle, 2002). An interesting, authoritative and comprehensive guide to sake.

Sake’s Hidden Stories by John Gauntner (ebook, 2009). Reaches beyond technical explanations, uncovering the human stories behind sake. Available only as an ebook: www.sake-world.com/html/sakeshiddenstories.html.

The Insider’s Guide to Sake by Philip Harper (Kodansha, 1998). Slightly older than Gauntner’s handbook but offers an extremely informative survey of the topic. The writing is lyrical in places.

Sake: A Modern Guide by Beau Timken and Sara Deseran (Chronicle Books, 2006). Much less detailed than Gauntner’s and Harper’s books but has an appealing introduction that communicates the essential information in a clear and entertaining way.

Japanese Whisky: Facts, Figures and Taste by Ulf Buxrud (DataAnalys, 2008). A comprehensive and detailed guide to the Japanese distilleries.

Other media

Anything by Nicholas Coldicott, the drinks writer of The Japan Times, is essential reading.

Metropolis Magazine. Good features and bar reviews.

Websites

Sake world (www.sake-world.com). Another mention for John Gauntner. His website is full of information about sake, as well as details of his seminars and professional courses, which have trained many of the leading figures in the international sake scene. Gauntner’s email newsletter is also packed with information.

Bento.com (www.bento.com). The leading English-language guide to eating and drinking in Tōkyō, Yokohama, Ōsaka, Kyōto and Kōbe. Its regularly updated restaurant and bar reviews are informative and reliable.

Brews News (www.bento.com/brews.html). Brews News is hosted on the www.bento.com servers but offers such a good coverage of the Japanese craft beer scene that it deserves separate mention. Maintained by Bryan Harrell, the leading expert on Japanese beer.

Boozelist (www.boozelist.blogspot.com). A constantly updated list of craft beers on tap in the Tōkyō and Yokohama area, plus beer and bar reviews on linked websites. Maintained by Chris “Chuwy” Philips, who taught me most of what I know about Japanese beer.

Beer in Japan (www.beerinjapan.com). Very good coverage of the Japanese craft beer scene.

Tokyo Foodcast (tokyofoodcast.com). A consistently interesting blog about Tōkyō food and sake by “Et-chan and Te-chan.”

Tokyo Through the Drinking Glass (www.tokyo-drinkingglass.blogspot.com/). “Life, wine, and the pursuit of sake” by Melinda Joe, who writes for Bento.com and The Japan Times.

Urban sake (www.urbansake.com). A great resource for US-based sake fans. Includes guides to drinking and buying sake in several major American cities.

Nihonshudō NYC (www.nihonshudo-nyc.blogspot.com/). A blog about New York’s flourishing sake scene.

Drinking Japan (www.drinkingjapan.com). My own website. It offers news and updates relating to this guide, and detailed referencing to the sources used in its preparation. The website also carries links to www.nonjatta.blogspot.com, a website I edit about Japanese whisky.

A warning and an appeal

Everything changes and few things are in such a constant state of flux as the Japanese drinking scene. I visited every one of the bars in this guide-at some time between the end of 2008 and August 2010. By the end of my research, I discovered that some of the bars in this book that I had visited at the start of my travels had closed or changed radically. I was able to remove these from my recommendations, but I am sure others listed here will close, raise their prices, drop their standards, change their opening hours, move or employ spectacularly obnoxious bar staff by the time you visit. If you do find things significantly changed, I would first like to apologize and would also appeal to you to contact me at www.drinkingjapan.com, where I will try to post details of important changes. If you find an excellent bar not included here, please send details! Any information given will help improve the next edition of this guide.

Sake bottles at Donjaka, Shinjuku, Tōkyō (page 52).