Tokyo's bar culture runs from the high to the low without much space in between. At one extreme, the city's hotel bars — the New York Bar at the Park Hyatt Shinjuku, the Vesper Bar at the Okura — are among the best in Asia, combining theatrical settings with serious cocktail-making. At the other, the tachinomi (stand-up drinking) bars around the major stations offer beer and yakitori for a few hundred yen.
The Golden Gai district in Shinjuku is the most distinctive bar experience in the city: over 200 tiny bars jammed into six narrow lanes, each with five to ten seats, usually with a theme or a particular kind of music. Some are welcoming to visitors; some display small signs indicating they are for regulars only. The correct approach is to walk slowly, peer in, and when one looks right, sit down. Most bars have a small cover charge (¥500–1,000).
Coffee culture in Tokyo is excellent. The city has some of the best specialty coffee in Asia, alongside the distinctive Japanese cafe tradition of slow-brewed siphon coffee in dignified, museum-quiet spaces.