
Sake Market: All You Can Drink Sake Bar in Tokyo

On a trip to Japan with my husband last year, one of our favourite discoveries was a sake bar in Tokyo: Sake Market in Shinjuku. It was one of our last nights in Japan, and we’d just finished an underwhelming dinner in a nearby vegetarian restaurant. Wanting to turn the evening around, I suggested we grab a drink somewhere nearby before heading back to our hotel. A quick search on Google maps led us to Sake Market, an all you can drink izakaya a few minutes’ walk away.
We’d been on a sake tasting experience a few days earlier in Kyoto, and wanted to try find a sake bar in Tokyo before we left Japan. Sake is a traditional rice wine and plays a big part of Japan’s food and drink culture. It comes in various types, with differences in taste, aroma and brewing techniques which can be influenced by the region or type of rice used.
Sake Market: a sake bar in Tokyo’s Shibuya district
Sake Market was the perfect place to explore sake a little more. It’s an izakaya, which is essentially a Japanese pub. It’s on the sixth floor of an office building, and you enter via an elevator that deposits you right by the front desk. You pay before entry, and prices vary depending on the length of your stay. We opted for half an hour, which was ¥1,500 (about £7.50), while an all-evening stay will set you back ¥3,600 (about £19).
One wall of Sake Market is lined with fridges. Inside, there are over 100 different types of sake, all organised by type and flavour profile. Customers help themselves to the fridges, pouring themselves glasses of sake. You’re limited to three glasses at a time, but you can refill as often as you want.
The staff at the front desk handed us a laminated card in English which detailed the categories of sake that the fridges held, and another that made suggestions based on how familiar with sake you were. We decided to try a broad mix, and picked out three cups each to fill up. We started off with very small pours to try as many as we could, and then picked our favourites for a full glass.
We’d only paid for half an hour as we’d only really wanted one drink, but we still managed to try six different sakes in that time. The cups are small (think espresso cup sized), so you can work your way through a few quite easily!
Food at Sake Market
Sake Market doesn’t serve food, but it does allow patrons to bring in their own or have it delivered. As we were entering in the elevator, there were a couple of UberEats drivers exiting the bar, and we also saw customers bringing in carrier bags of boxed meals. The izakaya has microwaves to heat your food, as well as a selection of plates, chopsticks, forks, and condiments. If we’d known this earlier, I’d have swapped that disappointing dinner for UberEats and Sake!


The Vibe
In the UK, the idea of “all-you-can-drink” brings to mind high-energy bottomless brunches with pumping music and spilled Prosecco. In Sake Market, the vibe was much lower key – full of friends and solo office workers unwinding after work with simple meals from the convenience store. In Tokyo, apartments tend to be very small, so something like Sake Market serves as a third-space for people in the city.
The bar also has strict rules to maintain the vibe – also handed to us on a laminated card. Some of the rules include: no drinking games, no flirting with the staff, and my personal favourite: no tottering. They also don’t allow livestreaming or loud phone calls, which are rules I can get on board with to be honest.
I think part of why I loved Sake Market so much is because it was so different to anything we have in the UK, and frankly, it’s not something that would work with London’s pub culture. It’s a calm and social space that perfectly fits the laid-back vibe we had throughout the rest of the trip. I’m so glad we found this little sake bar in Tokyo before we left. It’s definitely on my list for a return visit to Japan!






Getting there:
Sake Market has two locations: Shinjuku and Akihabara.
We visited the Shinjuku location, which is a 10 minute walk from Shinjuku station.
It’s located on the 6th floor of its building.
Address: Japan, 〒160-0022 Tokyo, Shinjuku City, Shinjuku, 3 Chome−9−9 ワタセイ・タマビル 6階

