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.
