Fifty-one floors. The cocktails do not need the view.
Issue 2
The Andaz rooftop, a cacao bar hidden in the same tower block, and a situation pick for the kind of Tokyo night that starts with one drink and ends much later than you planned.
The elevator opens on the 51st floor of Toranomon Hills Mori Tower and the first thing you notice is not the skyline. It is the sound — a live band, low and unhurried, playing into a room that already knows what kind of evening this is going to be.
Andaz Tokyo is the kind of place that earns its price before you have ordered anything. The panorama of the city spreads out in every direction worth looking. The cocktail menu is genuinely imaginative — not ambitious in the way hotel bars often are, which is to say performative and slightly hollow — but actually creative, in the way that means the drinks hold their own against the view rather than asking the view to carry them.
It is a Steep Pick. Book ahead. Come dressed for it. Order something from the seasonal list and do not look at the receipt until you are already back on the street.
The skyline makes the cocktails taste better than they already do. That is a high bar to clear and Andaz clears it without trying.
- Andaz Tokyo Toranomon Hills, By Hyatt Steep PickToranomon, Minato · Tokyo · Steep Index 8.9/10
The rooftop bar on the 51st floor of Toranomon Hills Mori Tower where the Tokyo skyline does the heavy work and a genuinely imaginative cocktail program does not let it do all of it alone.
- memento moriToranomon, Minato · Tokyo · Steep Index 8.3/10
A cacao-dedicated cocktail bar on the third floor of Toranomon Hills Business Tower where every drink on the menu traces back to the bean in a different and convincing way.
- Sarutahiko Coffee The BridgeHarajuku, Shibuya · Tokyo · Steep Index 7.7/10
Sarutahiko Coffee's Harajuku outpost sits on the third floor of Harajuku Station, spacious and window-lined, with decent coffee, a snack menu, and a front-row seat to one of the busiest streets in the city.
- nidoZenpukuji, Suginami · Tokyo · Steep Index 8.0/10
A posh modern room in Zenpukuji with high ceilings, good coffee, and a park across the street that earns the trip from wherever you are coming from.
Three floors below, a different story
Before or after the Andaz — or on a completely separate night, which is also the right call — go down to the 3rd floor of the same Toranomon Hills Business Tower and find memento mori.
The concept is cacao. Every drink on the menu traces back to the bean in a different and convincing way. The Cacao Pulp is the one to order first. The food and desserts are worth the table time. It is a little pricey, it is not a Steep Pick, but it is one of the more singular things you can do with a Tuesday evening in Tokyo if cocktails are your reason for being here.
The situation pick
You have a slow afternoon. You are somewhere near Shibuya or Harajuku. You want coffee and a window and nothing asked of you for an hour.
Go to Sarutahiko Coffee The Bridge. Third floor of Harajuku Station, tall windows, the street below doing the work while you do nothing. The coffee is honest and consistent. Arrive before noon if you want the room to breathe. The people-watching through the glass is some of the best in this part of the city and it costs nothing extra.
On our radar
nido in Zenpukuji, Suginami. Far west of where most people look, which is precisely the point. High ceilings, a park across the road, coffee and food that are worth the commute. We reviewed it this week. It is the kind of room that makes you feel you found something the rest of the city has not caught up to yet.
The best window seat in Tokyo is probably not the one you already know about. Keep looking.