Keikadou Co., Ltd.Kadoya Group / Yushima, Tokyo
Four late-night sakaba under Yushima Tenjin shrine, Tokyo
We run four small drinking places within two minutes' walk of each other, just below Yushima Tenjin shrine and a few minutes from Ueno. It started with a bar on a street corner ("kado" means corner). Today there is also an izakaya serving food and sake from the owner's home region in northern Miyagi, and two "soba sakaba", where you drink first and finish with a bowl of buckwheat noodles. All four open at 6 pm and stay open until the small hours. All are closed on Sundays.
A dim, cosy bar on a corner. The house drink is a Kakubin whisky highball served in a frozen copper mug (¥500). Proper bar food too: beef stew, soy-marinated cheese, old-school ketchup spaghetti "Napolitan".
"Sake and small plates from northern Miyagi." Rice and greens sent straight from farms in Kurihara, local sake (Kurikoma-san, Hagi no Tsuru, Wataya), a vegetable hot pot you dip pork into, and yakitori grilled one skewer at a time.
A "soba bar" in a back street below the shrine. Order a highball or sake and a few small plates, then finish with soba, cold or hot. Try the creamy, spicy "tantan" broth when it is on.
Right outside Yushima Station, with a few tables on the pavement. Same idea: drinks, small plates, soba to finish. Good for a quick one before the last train, or a slow one after it.
Hours can change on public holidays and at year end. Credit cards (VISA, Mastercard, JCB, AMEX, Diners) are accepted at all four shops; e-money and QR payments are not.
Suntory Kakubin, Japan's everyday whisky since 1937, topped with soda in a copper mug straight from the freezer. The metal keeps the drink ice-cold to the last sip and the thin rim changes the way it tastes. ¥500 at Bar Kadoya, and on the list at all four shops.
Not a whisky drinker? There are "Akadama" sweet-wine highballs, draught Premium Malt's, shochu, cocktails and Miyagi sake at Kuriharaya.
Keikadou Co., Ltd.3-45-3 Yushima, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0034