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Douglas Parkes

Hong Kong’s love affair with all things Japanese is well-known. At the city’s best sushi restaurants customers pay dearly to eat fish flown in daily from Tokyo, and whether it is soufflé pancakes or kakigori, Japanese desserts routinely trend on social media. Japanese-style highballs have been enjoying a resurgence of late and the country’s whisky and, increasingly, its gin are favourites of connoisseurs, too.
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Less heralded but with an equally devoted following are Hong Kong’s Japanese-style cocktail bars. Deliberately inconspicuous, these establishments are often harder to find than many of Hong Kong’s so-called “speakeasies” and tend to be tucked away in anonymous commercial buildings.
Typically headed by Japanese bartenders, they adhere strictly to notions of traditional Japanese culture. Trademarks include a long wooden bar, dark furnishings and the gentle harmonies of a soft jazz soundtrack. But an authentic experience requires more than just these superficialities.

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“It’s very difficult to define the Japanese style of bartending,” says Masahiko Endo, chief at Wan Chai’s Mizunara, “but I would say we’re more focused on how to make a cocktail. It’s about the process.”
An award-winning bartender, Endo moved from his hometown of Fukuoka to Hong Kong when Mizunara opened in 2015. He stresses that what matters most is not necessarily the drink itself but the manner in which it is made. “Many people think the cocktail itself is most important, and how you make it doesn’t matter. But the Japanese style is more focused on how we move, how we prepare, what kind of shaking we do. We find beauty in the style. It’s like the tea ceremony.”
Fittingly, one of Endo’s signatures at Mizunara is nagomi (HK$250), meaning harmony or peace. A mix of Hibiki whisky, matcha tea, elderflower and a dash of hazelnut syrup, it is a particularly smooth concoction. The mellow sweetness of the whisky is balanced by the bitterness of the matcha, while the finish leaves a pleasant nuttiness.

As with many elements of Japanese culture, tradition is hugely important. Ichiro Hiidome, founder of B.a.r. Executive Bar, started bartending 33 years ago. While studying mechanical engineering as a student he took a part-time job at the renowned Ichiro Hiidome, (now rebranded The Okura Tokyo). So taken was he with the bartending he witnessed there that he forsook a likely career at Toyota or one of Japan’s other industrial giants and decided to make bartending his profession.
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After graduating, he secured a job at the InterContinental in Tokyo. However, it required three years of training, working as a waiter first, before he was allowed to make a single drink for a customer. “That is Japanese style,” says Hiidome. “Even on my days off I would go to the hotel, change into my uniform and watch how my seniors made drinks and interacted with customers – 365 days a year I was studying. And it wasn’t just me; many colleagues from my generation had to train like this.”
Such dedicated training has paid off – few establishments can claim the staying power of B.a.r., which opened back in 2006. These days, Hiidome likes to make cocktails that are natural and do not require syrups or sugar. His grape whisky cocktail (HK$258) is one such example, made from just three ingredients: fresh Japanese grapes, Japanese whisky and a home-made champagne essence created by boiling off much of the alcohol from champagne. The result is a light, delicate drink ripe with fruit flavours.

Hiidome’s years of training resonates with Ayako Miyake, bartender at Bar Buonasera in Tsim Sha Tsui. Miyake is a rare breed, a female bartender with experience of working in Tokyo’s upscale Ginza district. She remembers her training as like a “student and teacher” relationship and recalls countless days spent cleaning toilets and dusting bottles before she was allowed to pick up a shaker.
Miyake takes her job extremely seriously and believes it is akin to an artisanal trade. She highlights the various high-quality tools a bartender requires and winces at the idea of free pouring – pouring spirits without a measure – and other casual Western practices. “The Japanese have a totally different drinking culture – one which regards the drink and those making it with respect,” she insists. “Bartending is a well thought of and highly respectable career there. I do not simply throw some liquid together; I consider things, I think about how it could be best done, and how I can achieve harmony within the cocktail.”

Despite her traditional training, Miyake is an innovative mixologist. One of her favourite drinks is thaiger (HK$168), a cocktail she was inspired to make during a guest shift in Bangkok. A mix of Jägermeister, Dover Shiso liqueur, fresh pineapple and pineapple juice, the combination is a punchy brew that successfully pulls together the disparate flavours of its ingredients.
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Miyake’s insistence that a true Japanese bar must follow the order and elegance of typical Japanese culture is a view that Bar De Luxe accepts to a certain extent. While the bar was established in partnership with legendary bartender Hidetsugu Ueno of Tokyo’s Bar High Five, it is, as senior bartender Ivin Hui says, “like half a Japanese bar”.
Much of that, though, is down to the kind of customers that like to visit Bar De Luxe – perhaps a side-effect of the establishment’s location close to Lan Kwai Fong. “In a real Japanese bar, staff will keep talking to you, watching what you need. Here, sometimes, customers have complained to us about that. ‘You’re too annoying!’ they’ve said.”

Bar De Luxe is also a victim of its size – it is one of those rare places in Hong Kong that might be too big for its own good. Even in the beginning, Ueno thought the spot had too many seats and that this would detract from staff providing the kind of dedicated service the Japanese pride themselves on.
One of Hui’s signatures is the yan cha (HK$148), which uses Kilchoman Machir Bay whisky as its base, mixed with Cynar and jasmine tea liqueur. An enticing array of flavours, this one manages to be both smoky and sweet, with subtle herbal notes.
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It is drinks like these that keep customers coming back, whatever worries Hui might have about Bar De Luxe not living up to the exacting standards of traditional Japanese hospitality.
“Of course we want to keep doing things the Japanese way,” he says, “but our customers are different. Even Ueno-san says we have to find our own way. Maybe it’s not 100 per cent following his way, but our result is still good.”
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Luxurious, low-key decor and award-winning bartenders at hip hang-outs including Wan Chai’s Mizunara, Causeway Bay’s B.a.r. Executive Bar, Bar De Luxe near Lan Kwai Fong and Bar Buonasera in Tsim Sha Tsui offer an awesome atmosphere for Japanophiles and cocktail connoisseurs


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