Every Ginza bar in this guide charges you something to sit down, from ¥880 at Bar Lupin and Mixology Salon to ¥2,200 at Tender, and all six are in a basement or on an upper floor, one of them a 1928 room down the stairs from an alley off Miyuki-dori and another on the 13th floor of a shopping center. The seventh, Bar BenFiddich, is across Tokyo in Nishi-Shinjuku and charges by the percentage instead. The charge (cover, seat or table charge, depending on who is translating) often comes with a hot towel or a small dish of something, and at Bar High Five and Bar Orchard Ginza it also buys the conversation, since neither hands you a menu: you name a spirit or point at a fruit, and the bartender takes it from there. At Bar High Five you order as soon as you sit down, at least one drink per person, and at both Tender and Bar High Five you keep your voice down. For the rest of the city, see our guide to the best bars in Tokyo, and for the bars behind unmarked doors, our Tokyo speakeasies guide.
1. Bar High Five
Hidetsugu Ueno trained under Hisashi Kishi at Star Bar Ginza before opening Bar High Five on July 4, 2008, and since 2015 it has been in the basement of the Efflore Ginza 5 Building at 5-4-15 Ginza, with twelve stools along a timber counter and about six tables. There's no menu in the room. A bartender asks what spirit you like and how sweet and strong, then builds something to match, though the website lists the house specials if you'd rather arrive with a name. Ceremony is J's Whisky, Macha Green Tea Liqueur, Green Tea Liqueur, Homemade Macha Green Tea Bitters (for those tracking, that's green tea three ways and a whisky). The house policy sheet runs to ten rules, among them one drink minimum per person, no phone calls at the counter and no browsing: "If you want to wait to order a drink, you may wait outside." The seating charge is ¥1,000 ($7). Bar High Five takes no reservations and doesn't let you wait in the entry, so get there at 5pm with your whole party; groups of more than four go to a table and can't split between table and bar. It's open Monday to Saturday until 1am, last entry at midnight, and the World's 50 Best Bars had it as high as No. 3 in 2013.
2. Star Bar Ginza
Hisashi Kishi won the International Bartenders Association world title in 1996, at 31, and on December 14, 2000, he opened Star Bar Ginza in the basement of the Moderns Ginza building at 1-5-13 Ginza, with Ueno, later of Bar High Five, as his only help. The room has a pressed tin ceiling and polished wood, with nine seats at the counter and ten at tables. Star Bar's own site claims the bar as the originator of Ninja Ice, cut by hand from the block and so clear it seems to vanish in the glass, and it also does a faceted cut it calls brilliant ice, and NHK has featured Star Bar on its Professional series. Order Kishi's signature Sidecar first, then something on the rocks so you can see the ice. The cover is ¥1,100 ($7) a person, and cocktails run about ¥2,000 to ¥3,000 ($13 to $20). Star Bar Ginza is open daily from 5pm to 11:30pm and takes bookings online for groups of four or fewer (the phone line is closed), and nobody is seated until the whole group has arrived. Star Bar also has branches in Namiki, Hibiya and Kyoto (the last of those is a longer walk).
3. Tender
Kazuo Uyeda started bartending at Tokyo Kaikan in 1966, opened Tender in 1997 and is still behind the counter past 80. Tender is now on the ninth floor of the Sanraku Building at 6-5-16 Ginza, having moved exactly one street number from the fifth floor of the Noh Theatre Building at 6-5-15, and older guides and Yelp still send people to the old address. Uyeda is the man behind the hard shake, in which the ice rolls around the inside of the shaker instead of slamming end to end, and 50 Best adds that he pours by eye, pre-chills the glasses and carves the ice. The drink to order is the Gimlet, which regulars know comes with a single large cube in the glass, and regulars also order his own recipes, Pure Love and City Coral among them. Expect about ¥2,200 ($15) for a cocktail and the same again for the cover, so one Gimlet costs ¥4,400 ($29). Tender has eight seats, six of them at the counter, and men can't wear shorts or sandals. It's open Monday to Saturday from 5pm to 11pm and doesn't take reservations, so the 5pm opening is when you get the stool facing Uyeda. The room is bright and kept quiet, and some first-timers find the formality chilly.
4. Bar Orchard Ginza
Two floors down in the same Sanraku Building, Bar Orchard Ginza has a dozen or so seats and a menu that is a basket of fruit on the bar. Point at something and say how strong you want it, and Takuo Miyanohara, who runs Bar Orchard with his wife Sumire, turns it into a drink, either a classic with the fruit swapped in or something frozen with liquid nitrogen. A pineapple-rum drink arrives in a miniature watering can for you to pour over ice, ginger-infused vodka comes in a doll's bathtub, and a Moscow Mule comes in a chilled copper mug (the one conventional choice of the three). If you drink tequila, ask Sumire. Asia's 50 Best Bars had Bar Orchard at No. 28 in 2019, and 50 Best puts the average drink at about $17 (call it ¥2,500), with a charge on top for the towel and snacks. Bar Orchard is open Monday to Saturday from 6pm to midnight, last order 11pm, and closed Sundays and holidays. Book by phone (+81 3-3575-0333) or AutoReserve, and keep the party small, since groups of more than four have been turned away rather than split.
5. Bar Lupin
Bar Lupin opened on October 3, 1928, in a basement at 5-5-11 Ginza, down a flight of stairs from an alley off Miyuki-dori, and is named for Maurice Leblanc's gentleman thief, whose top-hatted face is on the sign. Writers Kyoka Izumi and Kan Kikuchi backed it from the start, the French name had to go in wartime when foreign words were banned, and the bar came through the firebombing of Ginza in January 1945. In 1946 the photographer Tadahiko Hayashi was shooting the novelist Sakunosuke Oda at the counter when Osamu Dazai asked to be photographed too, and the picture of Dazai with his shoes up on a barstool hangs at the end of the bar, near the corner seat known as Dazai's seat. The ash counter is about 90 years old. The house drink is the Golden Fizz, a gin fizz with egg yolk, and the Moscow Mule comes in a copper mug with Wilkinson ginger ale. Bar Lupin has 30 seats, an English menu and a ¥880 ($6) cover, takes cash only, and is open Tuesday to Saturday from 5pm to 11:30pm, last order 11pm. Saturdays are packed, the anime Bungo Stray Dogs has put the bar in front of a new set of fans, and a weekday at 5pm is the time to try for Dazai's seat. Ask before taking photos, and keep other guests out of them.
6. Mixology Salon
Mixology Salon is on the 13th floor of the Ginza Six shopping center and opens at 1pm, so it's the one Ginza bar in this guide where you can have a drink between shops. It has eight seats, six of them at the counter, and builds its drinks on tea, starting with spirits infused in house: hojicha in bourbon, sencha in gin, oolong in rum and soba-cha in vodka. Start with the Green Tea Old Fashioned, or order the course of three to five tea cocktails. Shuzo Nagumo, who runs several Tokyo bars under the Mixology name, is behind it, and Asia's 50 Best Bars put Mixology Salon at No. 49 in 2019. The table charge is ¥880 ($6) with tax, tied with Bar Lupin for the lowest in this guide, and 50 Best puts the average cocktail at about $16. Mixology Salon is open daily from 1pm to 11pm, last order 10pm, but closes when Ginza Six does, and under-20s are allowed in until 5pm. Book on TableCheck, and expect banana bread or crackers with the first drink.
7. Bar BenFiddich (Nishi-Shinjuku)
Bar BenFiddich is in Nishi-Shinjuku, not Ginza, and it runs close to the opposite of Tender, with no printed menu and a pestle and mortar where you'd expect a shaker. Hiroyasu Kayama, formerly head bartender at Amber in Nishi-Azabu, opened it in 2013 on the ninth floor of the Yamatoya Building, where the only sign is a faded sticker on the callbox. He grows anise, fennel, wormwood and yuzu on his family's land in Chichibu, Saitama, and dried wormwood hangs from the rafters. You choose a base (whisky, gin, absinthe or amaro) and Kayama does the rest. Order the Fresh Campari, which he makes in front of you from 13 ingredients, cochineal among them. Figure about ¥4,500 ($30) a head before a 10% seat charge and a 10% service charge. The World's 50 Best Bars ranked Bar BenFiddich No. 44 in 2026, after No. 18 in 2025. It's reservation only, with bookings opening on the 20th of the previous month, and the first round of the 6pm seating can take a while.
Ginza Bar FAQ: Cover Charges, Menus and Dress Codes
How much is the cover charge at a Ginza bar? In this guide it's ¥880 at Bar Lupin and Mixology Salon, ¥1,000 at Bar High Five, ¥1,100 at Star Bar Ginza and ¥2,200 at Tender. Bar Orchard Ginza adds a charge for the towel and snacks, and Bar BenFiddich adds 10% for the seat and another 10% for service. Tipping isn't expected.
Do Ginza bars have menus? Not all of them. At Bar High Five you describe what you like, and at Bar Orchard Ginza you pick a fruit. Bar Lupin has a menu in English, and Mixology Salon lists its tea courses.
Is there a dress code? At Tender, men can't wear shorts or sandals, and Time Out suggests a button-down shirt at the least. Bar Lupin may turn away sandals, shorts and tank tops.
Which Ginza bars take reservations? Star Bar Ginza (online), Bar Orchard Ginza (phone or AutoReserve) and Mixology Salon (TableCheck). Bar High Five, Tender and Bar Lupin are walk-in only, and all three open at 5pm.
Do I have to order more than one drink? Bar High Five asks for at least one per person as soon as you sit, and with a cover charge the first drink is the expensive one: a Gimlet at Tender comes to ¥4,400 ($29) with the cover.
Can I pay by card? Bar High Five, Star Bar Ginza and Tender take cards. Bar Lupin is cash only.
Photos: Star Bar, Bar High Five, Bar High Five, Star Bar, Bar Orchard Ginza, Araisyohei / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0), Araisyohei / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0), Tadahiko Hayashi (1946) / Wikimedia Commons, Bar BenFiddich
