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The Best Bars in Nihonbashi


  1. Rank 2. Bulgari Ginza Bar

    Italian Cocktail Bar

    The onyx-black bar counter on the tenth floor looks down over the restaurant below, which gives the room a quietly theatrical feel. This is a cocktail bar running an Italian aperitivo angle, so Bellinis and Martinis anchor the menu alongside the house signature, a citrus gin blend with Aperol, pineapple, and lemon. The bartenders will also build something to order, so arriving with a vague idea is enough.


  2. Rank 2. Folklore

    Japanese Cocktail Bar


  3. Rank 2. High Five

    Cocktail Bar

    A basement cocktail bar in Ginza where the ice isn't just chipped but carved, by hand, to order. Hidetsugu Ueno's room runs on Japanese bartending precision applied to modified classics, the kind of place where the technique is the point without anyone making a speech about it. The crowd leans toward people who planned to be here. High Five holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Bars list and has done for years.


  4. A basement bar in Ginza that plays nothing but Tom Waits, all night, every night. The focus here is absolute: no food, just long drinks made with homemade tonic and ginger ale, beautiful hand-cut ice, and specially sourced lemons. The whisky highball is the signature, and the Japanese whisky selection runs deep. It earned a spot on The 50 Discovery list, and the regulars who fill it treat the place accordingly.

    The awards


  5. Rank 5. Gaslight Eve

    Cocktail Bar

    The awards


  6. Rank 5. Land Bar Artisan

    Cocktail Bar

    A hushed cocktail bar tucked deep inside a hulking 1970s office complex in Shimbashi, the salaryman district that never really sleeps. Antique furnishings and a near-silent room sit in odd, pleasing contrast to the gritty corridors outside. The bar leans hard on the classics, though regulars tend to steer toward the Pantheon, the house original built on Scotch, Benedictine, and lemon. A 50 Discovery from The 50 list.

    The awards


  7. The awards


  8. The awards


  9. Rank 5. Mixology Salon

    Japanese Cocktail Bar

    A cocktail bar perched on top of Ginza Six, seating exactly eight people around a minimal counter while the rest of Tokyo carries on below. The house obsession is tea, and the bartender Shuzo Nagumo has made a name threading gyokuro, hojicha, and oolong through classics you thought you knew. The room is delicate, the glassware is delicate, and somehow the whole thing stays relaxed anyway.

    The awards


  10. The Martini here has its own pilgrim trail, which tells you something about the reputation this Ginza cocktail bar carries. Takao Mori, a godfather of Japanese bartending, rarely works the room these days, but his longtime team keeps the recipes and the warmth intact. For a neighborhood defined by its stiffness, the mood runs notably loose. The 50 Discovery listed it, and regulars would tell you that undersells it.

    The awards


  11. Rank 5. Old Imperial Bar

    Cocktail Bar

    Stone reliefs and art deco fragments salvaged from the 1923 original line the walls of this hotel cocktail bar inside the Imperial Hotel, making it a quiet shrine to Frank Lloyd Wright. The leather and dark wood do the rest of the atmospheric heavy lifting. The cocktail list leans classic, with a few signatures from the bar team. Come here when Tokyo starts feeling like too much century and not enough century.

    The awards


  12. Rank 5. Star Bar

    Cocktail Bar

    The awards


  13. Rank 5. Tender

    Cocktail Bar

    The awards


  14. Kiha is a train-themed standing bar where the decor commits harder than most commuters do. Ambient rail sounds play, empty ekiben boxes line the staircase, and upstairs there's a full replica of a train car, with conductor outfits for photos. You pay by the clock rather than the drink, so the snacks stay simple: canned sardines under cheese, karaage, fries. It's The Infatuation's pick for both Tokyo's best bars and izakayas.


  15. Bar Lupin is a windowless basement cocktail bar in Ginza, named after the gentleman thief and long a drinking spot for Japan's literary heavyweights. Dazai and Ranpo both put in their hours here. The room runs dark and Showa-era, with weathered books on the shelves and black-and-white portraits of famous patrons watching you order. The Golden Fizz comes with whipped egg yolk and a writer's endorsement.


  16. Rank 16. Bar Orchard

    Cocktail Bar

    Bar Orchard is a Ginza cocktail bar where the menu is a heap of fresh fruit and you point at one, like a very expensive farmers market. The bartender builds something tiki-ish around your pick, then serves it in a ceramic shark, a turkey leg, or a tiny bathtub with suds on top. A flock of rubber ducks in outfits watches from the bar. Seats vanish fast, so arrive when the doors open at 6.


  17. Rank 16. Omnipollos

    Beer Bar

    Omnipollos is a craft beer bar from a Stockholm brewery, tucked into a former eel restaurant with a traditional tile roof, rainbow neon, and a yellow smiling-face lantern, all dropped into a grey business district. Inside it goes psychedelic, with baby blue walls, cloud-shaped lanterns, and ombre tabletops. Half the taps are Japanese, and the beer slushy with soft serve is a cheerful way to ignore your commute. It's on The Infatuation's Best Bars In Tokyo list.


  18. Rock Fish is a standing bar in Ginza where the kakubin highball is the whole conversation, and regulars put them away by the dozen. The whisky is a Suntory bottling that reaches almost no one else, the soda is a Japanese brand sharp enough to feel in your throat, and there's no ice, so the glass is simply chilled until it behaves. The Infatuation lists it among Tokyo's best bars. A fried sesame sphere handles snack duty.


  19. The awards


Eat Score

The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

    How we score →

    Drink Score

    The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

      How we score →

      Stay Score

      Four fifths of the score is the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin Key outweighs a listicle. The last fifth is where it is: the ranked places to eat and things to do around it, and how safe the country is. When you sort by what's nearby, distance from you changes the order, never the score.

        How we score →

        Do Score

        The score comes from the awards it's won, weighted by who gave them: a Michelin star outweighs a listicle. When you sort by what's nearby, distance changes the order, never the score.

          How we score →

          Best Place Score

          The Best Place Score rates the area around a point, not any one place. The places are 60% of it: the best of what's within reach, weighed by distance. The setting is the other 40%: how life goes in that country (how people rate their own lives, how long and how well they live, how safe they are) and what it's like right there (the air, and the weather). If the score looks low, we probably haven't found enough critics out here yet.