An Evening Drinking in Tokyo

Tokyo is a drinkers paradise. A haven of bars, open all night and straight through to morning. Smoke-filled places which you can emerge from bleary-eyed, into the crisp blue dawn among the salarymen.

There is something for everyone here, from the humble glass of foamy Kirin, to the most expensive, aged whiskey. There are izakayas, taverns, clubs, beer halls, one room dives with five chairs, jazz bars, soul clubs, metal pubs, tourist traps and classical music cafes. You can find them on quiet streets, deep in high rise blocks, or tucked away underground, almost hidden, on the busiest intersections of the busiest neighbourhoods. It’s best to try them all if you have the time.

You can find them by word of mouth, Google map links shared with you from a friend, who got it from their friend. Or maybe you’ll just stumble into one, thirsty or tired, in need of a whiskey highball or a lemon sour to refresh and cool down, rest tired feet during an impromptu rain storm. You’ll drop in and have a great time and then never be able to find it again, and the memory of that evening will be all the better for its unreplicability.

It was thus, a recommendation from a friend of a friend, that pointed us in the direction of Jazz Cafe Narcissus. And even with directions we struggled to find it. Narcissus is hidden in a nondescript block in Kabukicho. It is flanked on each side by girls bars, peep shows, cheap restaurants and convenience stores. Look out for a faded sign in the window of a block that simply says “Jazz”, and which you will miss unless you’re really looking for it, and a door next to it, where “Narcissus” is written in Kanji. From here you have to wind up some rickety stairs, and then through a door, and you’re greeted by the thick hum of a thousand years of cigarette smoke and the expansive squeal of free jazz.

Narcissus is run by Kawashima-san. The bar was started by her father before the Second World War, initially as a literary salon, before transitioning to jazz in the 60s, during the city’s Jazz Kissa boom. At one time there were over 200 jazz bars in the city, with varying degrees of formality or degeneracy, places to either reverently listen or else cut loose. Narcissus was just another one of those, but was famed for its live performances, becoming a favourite haunt of visiting musicians from the US.

Over the years its accumulated history, some intimate and irreplicable feeling that makes a bar much more than the sum of its parts. A pair of huge old speakers sit above one wall. There are pristine flowers on the end of the bar. A few tables for groups. Find a spot under the speakers along the bar and wait patiently for Kawashima-san to serve you. She will eventually give you a drinks menu, written in antique Japanese handwriting, which Google Translate won’t be able to translate. Just order a round of beers. It’s an unpretentious place, but one that is full of charm, listen to whatever is playing on the stereo.

Narcissus was located conveniently and dangerously close to where we were staying. And so it became something of a ritual, a place to start or end each evening. By the second or third time, Kawashima-san greeted us fondly. It was something of a punctuation mark in the city. A pitstop in between shopping trips or eating or heading to other bars in other parts of town. The strength of a bar rests, in certain respects, on its success as a place where, if you are drinking alone, will make you feel less lonely, and in a group, amplify the conviviality. Narcissus was perfect for any such occasion.

One such evening began in the usual manner in Narcissus. We arrived one after another, slowly filling up the bar stools, a round of drinks quickly before going somewhere else, which became two or three more while waiting for everyone to assemble and get ready.

We’d dressed up that evening because we were heading to the Park Hyatt, newly reopened after a two year closure for renovation. Specifically we were there to go to The New York Bar. The walk from Narcissus to the Park Hyatt takes you past Shinjuku station, winding through neon lights, shopping arcades, across motorways, until the hotel glimmers into view, its three interlocked towers rising high above you.

Built in 1994, the hotel occupies the top floors of the tower, it’s often described as the first “modern” hotel in the city. If you know The Park Hyatt it's probably from its immortalisation in Lost In Translation. The glowing geometric facade of its entrance remains remarkably unchanged from the opening scenes of that film. Approaching it feels reassuringly and wonderfully familiar.

Once inside the route to the New York Bar is wonderfully circuitous and labyrinthine, you head through lobbies and atriums, past libraries and restaurants, all warm dark wood and glass, each window, as you get higher up the building, revealing a bit more of that spectacular view of the Tokyo skyline.

And there’s a moment of glee at settling into the bar itself, as an elevator lands you into it,
its vast space, murals, the long table, jazz singer, all immediately recognisable from the film. You imagine you are Bill Murray. The New York Bar

It has the particular atmosphere of a room that knows how to do exactly what it should, and that leans into that completely. The platonic and highest ideal of the hotel bar. Full of strangers and possibilities. Enormous and intimate, long and low-lit, all pristine table clothes and luxurious leather. A dream of New York imagined from across the Pacific.

Well-dressed locals sip Suntory, couples share romantic evenings, our jazz trio for the evening fade into the background. We order martinis. Crisp, clean, a drip of condensation, a twist of bright yellow lemon floating in them. The smoothest of bar jazz in the background. The view, on a clear morning, stretches all the way to Mt Fuji, but tonight it's just a magical shimmer of Tokyo’s lights in the darkness, a swirling cosmos of buildings, peaceful from our vantage point.

We head back down onto the street, and back, inevitably, to Narcissus for a nightcap.