So says the September issue of Bon Appetit, in an eight-page spread highlighting nine of the top bars in the city. According to the author, Tokyo is “besting New York and London at the cocktail game”, so he took it upon himself to investigate, bringing back reviews and beautiful photography of some of the city’s best drinking establishments.

Here we read about bartenders who pay particular attention to the customer, something they say American bartenders typically don’t do, infusing their craft with aspects of the Japanese tea ceremony. “It inculcates purity and harmony, the mystery of mutual charity, the romanticism of the social order”, says Kazuo Uyeda, bartender at the Tender Bar, an old-school speakeasy on the fifth floor of a nondescript office building in Tokyo.

Other featured bars include the Star Bar, which serves drinks chilled with large, hand-carved ice cubes, Little Smith, who offers an artisanal Bloody Mary made by muddling a whole cooked tomato and adding Ukrainian chili-pepper vodka, and the Shoto-Club, in which bartenders with slicked back hair and plaid vests serve specialty drinks made with fresh, seasonal ingredients, such as their Persimmon-Champagne cocktail.

A city of countless hidden speakeasies, impossibly artistic mixology, and infinite drinks. Welcome to Tokyo, cocktail capital of the world.

Sarai and I briefly considered visiting Tokyo this year but decided against it in favor of going to Paris, which means I won’t be trying out any of these bars in the near future. On the other hand, we will be making at stop at the Bar Hemingway at the Ritz Paris, which is even better.

And speaking of travel, we’re about to leave for LA for a week and have a small list of bars we’ll be visiting. I’ll be writing up some good reviews when we get back.

Update - October, 2008

This article can now be read in its entirety on BonAppetit.com.

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Tags: magazines, tokyo