If you’ve ever wondered why your Japanese coworkers vanish through a door sporting a red lantern and stagger out three hours later with their neckties wrapped around their foreheads, welcome to the Japanese izakaya.
An izakaya is not just a bar. It’s not just a restaurant. It’s also not your living room, though you may forget the difference after a couple of lemon sours.
You leave full, maybe a little tipsy, but with the sense that you’ve tasted not just food and drink, but a traditional Japanese way of mixing company and cuisine.
What Makes Izakaya Different
The magic of an izakaya lies not in a single dish or culinary style but in the variety it offers.
While many Japanese restaurants specialize - a ramen shop, for instance, is laser-focused on its broth and noodles - an izakaya menu sprawls happily from fried chicken to sashimi, hitting salads, pickles and the occasional pizza along the way.
This choose-your-own adventure extends to the drinks list, with a variety of soft drinks and alcoholic beverages - highballs, beer, sake and shochu - on tap.
Diners order little by little instead of committing to everything up front because izakaya operate in a different dimension of space and time. A ramen shop wants you in and out before your seat gets warm but an izakaya expects you to stay and get comfortable. Dishes arrive in waves, drinks refill in cycles - time is on a loop. If this is a Matrix, at least it comes with sake.
But perhaps the biggest difference is the atmosphere. Izakaya hit the sweet spot between quiet and chaos: lively enough to laugh; not so loud you can’t be heard.
That balance makes it easy for even the most reserved diner to open up. Shy salarymen loosen their ties, confessions tumble out between sips and, sometimes, strangers at the next table become drinking companions.
For non-Japanese visitors, this makes izakaya one of the best places to chat with locals. In a country where public restraint is the default, the izakaya is a licensed zone for laughter, secrets and third and fourth helpings.
Izakaya Types
Japan offers izakayas in more flavors than a convenience store has instant ramen cups. A quick sampler:
- Chain izakaya: Budget-friendly; laminated or touch-screen menu; often with a button on the table to hail the staff. Good for big groups and all-you-can-drink (nomihodai) plans.
- Traditional izakaya: family-run; strong in seasonal cooking; handwritten - at times, hieroglyphic - menus. The owner or head chef knows the regulars by name and remembers their preferences.
- Yakitori/kushikatsu specialists: where the skewer is king. Especially glorious in Osaka, where fried skewers are treated as cultural heritage.
- Upmarket izakaya: sleek interiors; curated cocktails; Instagram-ready plating.
- Yokocho alley bars: small izakaya jammed under the tracks near train stations or in backstreets, often marked by red lanterns. Ideal for bar-hopping, known as hashigo-zake (ladder drinking). The higher you climb, the wobblier the rungs.
The Origins of Izakaya
Sakaya: The 'Stay and Drink' Revolution
In pre-modern Japan, people who wanted to buy alcohol took their own flasks to sakaya - liquor shops - purchased sake by volume and carried it home.
But, over time, they took to lingering at the shop, sipping and chatting.
Shopkeepers eventually gave up and rolled out seats - crates and barrels at first - and simple snacks. Thus, a new kind of eatery was born: 'i' (居), meaning stay, was combined with 'sakaya' (酒屋), the term for liquor shop, to form a new word: 'izakaya', places where you could stay and drink.
Niuri-ya: The Simmered Dish Specialists
While sakaya provided the booze, niuri-ya (煮売屋) offered the food that would anchor Japan’s drinking culture. These were shops that specialized in simmered dishes (nimono) such as stewed fish and vegetables.
After the Great Fire of Meireki in 1657, Edo was swamped with artisans and laborers who arrived in search of construction work, and niuri-ya flourished as a source of cheap and convenient food.
Some niuri-ya merged with teahouses and became known as niuri-chaya (煮売茶屋). Others paired their fare with alcohol, giving rise to niuri-sakaya (煮売酒屋). These establishments formed a crucial link in the evolution of the izakaya - places where sake and hearty food could be enjoyed together under one roof.
The shogunate repeatedly tried to curtail them (fire danger, rowdy laborers, late-night fights), but Edo’s single men needed meals and somewhere to blow off steam. Demand always won and the izakaya as we know it took shape.
Dining Rituals: Otoshi, Oshibori and Overflow
Otoshi: The Appetizer You Didn’t Ask For
The izakaya may serve a small appetizer - called otoshi in the Kanto region and tsukidashi in Kansai - which could be edamame or a variety of bites.
If there's anything you can't or won't eat, let the staff know as soon as you are shown to your seat - before the otoshi appears. Once that little dish is set down, it’s on your tab.
The fee - usually a few hundred yen - also doubles as your seat charge; it's bad form to argue with the staff about this.
Think about it this way: many otoshi dishes showcase seasonal flavors or small specialties you might never think to order yourself. So, approach the appetizer as a friendly handshake from the kitchen or an amuse-bouche preview of the house style.
Oshibori: Not a Spa Treatment
Once you're seated, you'll be offered an oshibori - a small, wet towel that's hot in winter and cool in summer.
Clean your hands with the towel but don't use it to wipe the table or your face, even if you see the elderly gentleman at the next table doing just that.
Mokkiri Sake: A Measure of Japanese Drinking Culture
Order sake at an izakaya and you may get a performance with it. The server places a glass in a masu box, then keeps pouring until the glass is so full it spills over. This is mokkiri: part tradition, part panache.
The term mokkiri is thought to have come from morikiri (盛り切り) - the old way of selling sake by weight, straight from a barrel into a tokkuri flask or masu measuring box.
Another term is sometimes put forward as the origin of mokkiri: morikoboshi (盛りこぼし), or 'splash over'.
Back in the day, sake was typically served in a one-go portion (about 180ml). But glasses often weren’t big enough to hold that much.
The solution? Place a masu or saucer underneath and let the sake overflow. What began as a practical fix soon became a flourish of hospitality. Whether the spill is modest or fills the masu to the brim, the meaning remains unchanged: here's an extra measure of goodwill for you.
The first challenge of mokkiri is obvious - move the glass too quickly and you’ll baptize the table.
The graceful method is to tilt a little sake into the masu before drinking. When your glass runs low, pour the overflow from the masu back into it or skip the glass altogether and drink straight from the masu.
Whichever method you choose, enjoy the feeling of abundance. Mokkiri isn’t just a way to serve sake - it’s a little performance of generosity, reminding you that, in an izakaya, your glass runneth over.
Don't Know What to Get? Order a Variety
When asked for your first order, it’s customary to say 'Toriaezu bīru' ('Beer to start') or 'Toriaezu nama' ('A draft beer for now'), which buys you time to study the menu.
But it’s not mandatory - feel free to start with a highball, a cocktail or even a soft drink if that’s your preference. The important part is joining in the first-round kampai toast together.
Get a variety of small dishes so there's something for everyone. A typical izakaya menu will feature the following:
- Fried favorites: tempura, karaage fried chicken, kushikatsu (meat, fish and vegetable skewers), fries if you must.
- Healthy-ish: dashimaki or tamagoyaki omelet, salad, tofu, grilled fish and vegetables. Order these but know that you’ll undo it with the karaage or that deep-fried mochi dessert.
- Mysterious row of big bowls: simmered dishes - another way to add greens to the meal and to try local specialties.
- Classic flex: assorted sashimi. Expensive but looks impressive.
- Shime, the dish that ties everything up: noodles, onigiri, ochazuke - tea or stock poured over rice with toppings. It's a gentle way to settle your stomach as you prepare to head home.
Etiquette Guide - Because It's Japan
Izakaya are known for their relaxed atmosphere but it's good to keep a few things in mind:
- Some izakaya have a time limit, usually set at two hours. Plan the drinking accordingly.
- Not every restaurant will take credit cards. Check if payment is cash-only to avoid trouble when it's time to settle up.
- Don’t drink before the kampai, the cheerfully ceremonial toast that signals the start of the gathering. When the toast comes, it’s fine to raise any drink - beer, sake, cocktail or tea. The spirit of kampai is togetherness, not alcohol content.
- Many izakaya, if not most, are non-smoking establishments. If in doubt, check before lighting up.
- Enjoy the wide variety of dishes on offer. If the food comes in a large dish for sharing, use a separate pair of chopsticks or the other end of your chopsticks to help yourself.
- At an izakaya, you don’t pour your own drink or you'll risk looking like an alcoholic. Keep an eye on everyone else’s glasses. Pour for your friends and they’ll pour for you - be sure to hold the cup or glass with both hands when they do.
Bars and Restaurants: Language Basics
Even in a world of translator apps, it makes a real difference to your dining experience if you attempt to speak the local language. Here are a few phrases to get you started:
- Sumimasen! – 'Excuse me!' (universal staff call).
- Toriaezu nama futatsu! – 'Two draft beers to start!'
- Osusume wa? – 'What do you recommend?'
- Itadakimasu! - 'I humbly receive.' (Put your palms together and give thanks for the meal before digging in.)
- Okaikei onegai shimasu! – 'Bill, please.' (No need to say this if there's a tab on or near your table – just take it to the register on your way out and pay there.)
- Gochiso-sama deshita! – 'Thank you for the feast!' (Expression of gratitude after a meal, whether in a restaurant or someone's home. Can also double up as an elegantly indirect way to ask for the bill.)
- Arigatou gozaimasu! – 'Thank you very much!'
One For the Road
Japan's izakaya culture may have come about because everyone from Edo workmen to Tokyo salarymen needed to eat and wanted to drink.
But these gastro-pubs have also become places where it's less about what’s in your glass and more about who’s across the table.
Even as the drinks change, the spirit stays the same: raise a toast, share a plate and let the night carry you until the trains stop running.
By Janice Tay