Tokyo's definitive rooftop is technically indoors: the New York Bar on the Park Hyatt's 52nd floor, of Lost in Translation fame, where a live jazz band soundtracks the endless circuitry below. Open-air rivals cluster around Shibuya and Ebisu, and Shibuya Sky's open deck turns the famous crossing into a pleasing ant farm. Go at dusk in winter, when the air is clearest — on a good evening Mount Fuji gatecrashes the skyline. Cover charges apply once the band starts.
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Tokyo bartending is a craft tradition: in Ginza's hushed second-floor rooms, a single perfect highball involves hand-carved ice and total silence, and the seat charge is the price of watching a master work. For the opposite energy, Shinjuku's Golden Gai crams two hundred shoebox bars into six alleys — pick one with space at its four or five stools and settle in. Carry cash; many of the best rooms take nothing else.
Featured in Ten cocktail cities for a very grown-up bar crawl · Nightlife