If you're bar hopping in Tokyo, The SG Club — ranked No.23 on Asia's 50 Best Bars in 2024 (and No.54 on The World's 50 Best Bars 2024) — is absolutely a stop you can't miss. Since 2019, The SG Club has made the Asia's 50 Best Bars list every year, and it even reached No.10 in 2020, so it's well worth a visit.
📜 Information
- Address: 1 Chome-7-8 Jinnan, Shibuya City, Tokyo 150-0041, Japan
- Opening hours: 18:00–01:00
- Price: roughly ¥1,800 ~ ¥2,800 per drink
- Official page: https://www.instagram.com/the_sg_club/
- Reservations: https://www.tablecheck.com/zh-TW/shops/the-sg-club/reserve
📍 Location & Interior
The SG Club is located near Shibuya Station — about a 10-minute walk from the subway. There's no obvious sign out front, but it isn't too hard to find, since there are always customers gathered by the entrance.
Whether on a weekday or a weekend, the halo of being one of Asia's 50 Best Bars is powerful: the place is packed. If you haven't booked in advance there's a good chance you won't get a seat, so I'd recommend reserving online beforehand to be safe (reservations accept up to five people at a time).
 |
| "Guzzle" on the first floor |
The SG Club is divided into "Guzzle" on the ground floor and "Sip" in the basement. "Guzzle" upstairs takes a relaxed, casual approach, offering coffee and a range of non-alcoholic drinks alongside cocktails. According to friends who had visited before, the drinks lists upstairs and downstairs are different — so if you want to try lots of special signature cocktails, you should choose "Sip" in the basement.
 |
| "Sip" in the basement |
"Sip" downstairs serves many special signature cocktails, so if you want a jolt to the taste buds and the full Asia's 50 Best cocktail experience, the basement is the way to go. That night, almost all the guests were foreigners, and the bartenders' English is excellent — ordering drinks, asking about flavors, or just chatting is no problem at all.
That said, the basement space is on the small side, with few seats placed quite close together, so when it's full it can feel a little cramped.
 |
| The "Sip" space |
📜 Menu
🍸 The Cocktails
Tomato Tree or Insane Tomato
This one leads with a fresh tomato aroma — light, lightly sweet, with just a faint hint of alcohol. What stands out is the herbal tomato and dill aroma, which gives it a vegetal, fruity feel. A cherry tomato garnishes the glass, adding a playful visual touch.
Rain & Moss Gin Fizz
This cocktail carries a herbaceous aroma, with subtle medicinal-herb and smoked plum notes that are gently sweet-and-sour — like a clarified version of smoked plum juice. The bubbles are crisp and refreshing, yet the flavor takes fun turns; it's a fizz meant to be sipped slowly.
Shizenha Fushizenha Wine (自然派不自然派ワイン)
This drink brings to mind a crisp white wine, giving off aromas of green apple and grapefruit peel. The overall profile is close to white wine, with a distinctive fermented character and low acidity and sweetness — imagine a white wine with a fermented twist.
Drunken Grandma's Apple Pie
On the nose it's exactly like cinnamon apple pie, and the rim is dressed with sea salt miso. The apple flavor is nicely balanced between sweet and tart, paired with a browned-butter aroma, with a gentle whisper of spirit on the finish. It was everyone's favorite of the night — very easy-drinking and crowd-pleasing, yet with genuinely interesting flavor elements. Highly recommended.
Less in Wax
The nose is subtly fruity, but the palate blends cacao, coconut milk and taro, with a cake-like creaminess. The inside of the glass is coated with white chocolate, adding another layer as you drink.
Charlie Brown Loves Wagyu
At first sniff there's a slightly savory, food-like aroma. It drinks a bit like an Old Fashioned with faint peanut oil and beef notes, topped with a piece of wagyu jerky — very much a fusion of food and cocktail. I'd say fans of the Old Fashioned will enjoy this one even more.
Cold Soba Negroni
The aroma of roasted buckwheat is reminiscent of coffee, and paired with the roasted character and bitterness of barley tea, the flavors complement each other beautifully. Even people who don't usually like a negroni might enjoy this well-balanced bitter cocktail — I thought it was very well executed.
Whisky Nigiri
This one smells of vinegar, soy sauce and wasabi, and tastes salty and sour at once, finishing with a touch of wasabi heat. The flavor is unique — whether you like it is down to personal taste, but it's a genuinely fun food-inspired cocktail.
Overall, the direction and flavors of the cocktails are fascinating — flavors like roasted soba that I'd never imagined before, well worth trying. The atmosphere of the bar is great too, and the bartenders are warm and cheerful. All in all, a really enjoyable experience.
More bar write-ups from around the world:
Bar List | Bar surfing around the world | A record of bars around the globe
More Taiwan accommodation and attraction guides
If you enjoy my posts, feel free to follow the travel accounts below — I regularly share beautiful places I've found and useful travel information. Recommendations for fun spots are always welcome!
Instagram: @travel.sean
留言
張貼留言