Craftroom opened on a quiet Jingumae side street in 2019 and runs the format Ginza cocktail bars are famous for: an eight-seat counter, a single bartender on duty, and a printed spec for every drink. The bar charges a ¥1,000 cover, which is standard for the format, and pours from a list of 14 seasonal builds plus the classics.
The room is one of the most-recommended new-generation cocktail bars in Aoyama in lists by Time Out, Travel + Leisure, and Diffords. The pull is not in the spirits library — it's small — but in the bartender Kentaro Wada's seasonal builds, which rotate every two months and lean on Japanese ingredients (yuzu, ume, hojicha, sansho) sourced from a specific farm in Wakayama.
A single L-shaped wooden counter, eight seats, dim recessed lighting from above. No tables, no banquettes, no music other than what the bartender is playing on a turntable behind the counter. Diffords Guide noted in 2022 that "every visible surface is a working surface," which is accurate — the back bar holds 80 bottles, the citrus is hand-cut at the counter, and the only decoration is a printed monthly menu card.
Order the seasonal special (¥1,800 to ¥2,500), whatever it is that month — the bar's strength is in the rotation, not in the standing menu. The Yuzu Highball (¥1,800), built with Nikka Coffey Grain and house-made yuzu cordial, is the bar's signature and the one drink Difford's profiled by name. Skip the classics list — the bartender will build them on request, but regulars on r/japanlife consistently note that the room's edge is in the seasonal originals, not in another technically correct Negroni.
Mostly Tokyo locals and a thin band of visiting cocktail enthusiasts who booked through the bar's site. Time Out Tokyo placed it in their 2024 top-ten new bars in the city.