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The Best Bars in Kyoto

Kyoto's best cocktail rooms are spread between Kiyamachi, the backstreets of Shimogyo and the Miyagawa-cho district. The best bars in Kyoto start at Bee's Knees, a Prohibition-style speakeasy behind a yellow door in a facade labeled The Book Store, which Toru Ariyoshi opened in 2018; it entered Asia's 50 Best Bars at No. 21 in 2020 with the highest new entry award. Up Kiyamachi at Nijo, Bar K6 is a second-floor bar long known to Kyoto drinkers for its single malts. In Shimogyo, Tomoiki Sekine's Nokishita 711 serves liquid cuisine, cocktails drawn from meat, fish, insects and plants, as tasting courses with non-alcoholic and vegan options. Kenji Tsubokura's Bar Rocking Chair, a backstreet bar full of its namesake furniture, mixes cocktails with Japanese ingredients. YOI, the bar-led dining room of Capella Kyoto in a former school, has an eight-seat cocktail bar and welcomes walk-ins. Booking styles differ: Nokishita 711 takes reservations only, while Rocking Chair holds a seat for 30 minutes if you call ahead. These are the bars we would start with.

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  1. Bee's Knees
    ASIA'S 50 BESTCocktail Bar

    Bee's Knees

    Kyoto cocktail bar on Asia's 50 Best Bars every year from 2020 to 2023, and on the 51-100 list in 2024 and 2025.

    中京区木屋町四条上ル紙屋町364, Kyoto
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  2. Bar Rocking Chair
    ASIA'S 50 BESTCocktail Bar

    Bar Rocking Chair

    Tucked so far into Kyoto's back lanes that taxi drivers can balk at the address, Bar Rocking Chair sits on Gokomachi-dori, south of Bukkoji, in Shimogyo-ku. Owner-bartender Kenji Tsubokura, whom Time Out counts among Japan's top bartenders, runs a snug, dim, wood-paneled room for fewer than 30 guests, four of them in rocking chairs. There is no menu: the team asks what you like and builds a bespoke drink, often around Japanese ingredients, with bar snacks on the side. Reservations are generally not taken, apart from phone bookings for the 5 pm to 6 pm slot, taken from the beginning of every month, and it is closed on Tuesdays. The bar was No. 81 on the Asia's 50 Best Bars 51-100 list in 2023.

    434-2 Tachibanacho, Shimogyo-Ku, Kyoto
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  3. Nokishita 711
    Cocktail Bar

    Nokishita 711

    Nokishita 711 calls what it does liquid cuisine: cocktails made by extracting liquid from every kind of ingredient, meat, fish, insect and plant included. It is reservation only, with seatings at three, six and nine, and serves a tasting menu rather than a list, an omakase pairing course and a shorter trial course, in small, low-alcohol pours, with non-alcoholic and vegan versions on offer.

    Atsumari B, 235 Sendo-cho (船頭町235), Shimogyo-ku, Kyoto 600-8019Reservation only, seatings 15:00, 18:00 and 21:00
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  4. YOI
    Hotel Bar

    YOI

    Capella Kyoto's YOI is the most talked-about new hotel bar opening in Japan - a modern Japanese kappo-style cocktail and dining concept that feels intimate, creative and deeply tied to Kyoto culture rather than international hotel clichés. The concept blends counter-style kappo dining, where chefs prepare dishes directly in front of guests, with a serious cocktail program built around Japanese citrus, tea, herbs and local spirits. One standout is the "Japanese Loafer" with Midori, bergamot, gin, yuzu sake and citrus. Designed by Kengo Kuma, the space carries his signature aesthetic: dark woods, layered textures, machiya-inspired architecture, intimate lighting and materials restored from the old school previously on the site. Wallpaper described it as "refreshingly laid-back" and deeply connected to Kyoto craftsmanship. What sets YOI apart is that locals are actually drinking there - Travel + Leisure noted they outnumber hotel guests, which is rare for a newly opened ultra-luxury property in Kyoto. That positions YOI as a true destination bar and a bridge between hospitality luxury and local bar culture. The hotel opened in March 2026 as the first Japan property for Singapore-based Capella Hotels & Resorts, rooted in Miyagawa-cho's geisha district heritage and Kyoto artisanship. YOI fits that "ultra-luxury but culturally embedded" vision perfectly, and is helping push Kyoto onto the global map for luxury cocktail tourism alongside Tokyo, Osaka, Singapore and Hong Kong.

    130 Komatsucho, Higashiyama Ward, Kyoto, 605-0811, Japan
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  5. Bar K6
    Whiskey Bar

    Bar K6

    Bar K6 is on the second floor of the Val's Building on Kiyamachi-dori at Nijo, a bar its owner runs alongside a standing sake bar, KASK, and a wine cave, Cave de K, in the same family. The site is a weekly bartender's diary, mojito season in July, a Port Charlotte 2001 for early summer, and it states the essentials plainly: the bar is closed on Monday and Tuesday, and KASK is open every day.

    Val's Building 2F, 481 Higashiikesu-cho (木屋町二条東入ル), Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto 604-0922Wed-Sun, Mon-Tue closed
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