Naofumi Yokoyama’s Kichijoji counter, where the menu is whatever he hands you next.
Memento Mori opened in Kichijoji in 2018 under bartender Naofumi Yokoyama, who built his reputation at SG Club and Land Bar Artisan before going solo. The bar is small — eight counter seats, no standing room — and runs on an omakase cocktail format that has become its calling card.
Yokoyama serves what he decides will work for the room that night, frequently leaning on the seasonal produce delivered each afternoon from the Ota market. Class Magazine, in its 2023 profile, called the operation “the most quietly experimental bar in greater Tokyo”. Anyone who arrives expecting a printed menu and a Negroni at a fixed price will be disappointed; everyone else leaves obsessed.
The space sits on the second floor of a small building two minutes’ walk from Kichijoji station’s north exit. The L-shaped counter is white-oak; the back wall holds the working bottles. Reviewers on Tabelog describe the lighting as “low enough to flatter the drink, bright enough to see Yokoyama work”.
There is no à la carte. The omakase course runs four to six cocktails at roughly ¥3,000 each, and a typical sequence opens with a clarified citrus build, moves through a savoury short drink, and closes on a stirred spirit-forward pour with a dessert pairing. The Infatuation singled out a tomato & junmai-shu cocktail that has rotated in and out of the lineup since 2021. Skip the wine list — it exists but is an afterthought.
Bookings split roughly evenly between Tokyo locals making the trip out west and visiting bartenders on industry pilgrimage. Reddit’s r/japantravel consistently flags that the bar takes reservations only via Instagram DM and the slots evaporate within hours. Best window is 7pm-9pm on a weekday; the second seating after 10pm runs looser.
Reservations open four weeks in advance via Instagram DM and the staff respond within 24 hours; cancelling within 48 hours of the booking will earn a quiet flag on the next attempt. The set is paid by credit card at the end of the seating; tips are not expected. Tabelog commenters consistently advise against ordering off-menu — Yokoyama runs the omakase as a curated sequence and a substitution breaks the structure. A non-alcoholic course is available for the same price and is genuinely interesting rather than an afterthought. The bar closes for two weeks each August and reopens with a new opening cocktail; the August reopening is the hardest seat in the calendar. The bar accepts only one party of four per night and will turn away walk-ins after 7pm. Yokoyama works the counter himself on Tuesday and Thursday nights; the rest of the week his deputy runs the room. The post-set whisky pour is genuine and rotates through the back-bar Japanese single-cask selection.
Memento Mori’s public Instagram (verified May 2026); Class Magazine (2023 profile); The Infatuation Tokyo; Tabelog reviews (n=210); r/japantravel.