Peter: The Bar
With herbs and flowers sourced from across the country, Peter: The Bar turns its cocktail menu into a sensory tour of Japan
Peter: The Bar hands you the menu experience before the first drink even arrives. Alongside the menu itself come little bottles of dried herbs and flowers, ingredients sourced from across Japan that appear in the cocktails, so you can smell and see what you’re about to taste. It sets the tone immediately: this is a bar interested in Japanese flavors most cocktail lists never touch, and it wants you engaged with them from the start.
Unique Japanese Flavors in Every Cocktail
The Koji Martini was the standout of our visit. Built on Tumugi, made with traditional koji and Japanese botanicals, and paired with Nikka Coffey Gin infused with smoked radish and shiso bitters, it drinks like a Japanese answer to a dirty martini, savory and layered, with the smoked radish giving it that briny pull. At ¥3,200 it’s a splurge, and it earns it.
The Peter Aviation leaned floral and citrus-bright: Kibou Gin Shakotan with violet, sakura, orchid and maraschino, served in a glass designed to echo the silver tree centerpiece in the room.
Head Mixologist Mari Kamata, who has run the bar since it opened in 2007, travels across Japan sourcing unique ingredients for the menu, and her Journey of Japan cocktails draw on specific prefectures for their inspiration.
The View from the 24th Floor
The bar sits on the 24th floor of The Peninsula Tokyo, with art deco styling and a skyline view over the Imperial Palace Gardens, Hibiya Park and Ginza. We went in the early evening and caught the sunset over the city, and the room works just as well after dark once the lights come on below. There’s no cover charge, reservations aren’t accepted, and the dress code stays casual.
Plenty of Tokyo hotel bars have a view. What Peter: The Bar adds is a menu that makes Japanese ingredients the main event, from the dried botanicals you can hold in your hand to the flavors in the glass. Come for the sunset, stay for a drink you won’t find a version of anywhere else.
Peter: The Bar at The Peninsula Tokyo
Location: 24F, 1-8-1 Yurakucho, Chiyoda-ku
Hours:
12pm – 11:30pm (LO 11pm) (Mondays to Thursdays, Saturdays)
12pm – 12am (LO 11:30pm) (Fridays)
12pm – 11pm (LO 10:30pm) (Sundays, Public Holidays, 20th)
Contact: +81 3 6270 2888
Website: peninsula.com/en
The writer visited Peter: The Bar as a guest of The Peninsula Tokyo.
