This was never going to be an easy task, writing a fun piece about the weekend Antoine Yazbek came to Tokyo without coming across as a depraved alcoholic.
So before I admit to lying prostrate on the 17th floor hallway of The Peninsula Hotel at 4am...here is what really happened-
Antoine had a dream. And lucky for him, his company had the resources to send him to Tokyo on what he insists was a business trip (and not a karaoke/raw fish fest)… fair enough, one business meeting did take place between the countless rounds of sake we were chasing with Yebisu beer.
But how we got to sing karaoke with the The Black Eyed Peas I no longer remember.
Having no shame helps.
What also helps is when your body goes on autopilot and stops registering you are well into the 12th hour of boozing. Memory lapses and a whole lot of raw fish later Antoine and I were on the 20th floor of an all-night karaoke joint with music industry heavy weights who just shot a video in Tokyo.
Having no shame helps.
What also helps is when your body goes on autopilot and stops registering you are well into the 12th hour of boozing. Memory lapses and a whole lot of raw fish later Antoine and I were on the 20th floor of an all-night karaoke joint with music industry heavy weights who just shot a video in Tokyo.
The only other time I saw my friend so happy was at Kiddy Land. But we don't talk about that!
So why was I on the hallway floor again?
Picture us stumbling out of Kyubay, arguably world’s best sushi joint into the back alleys of Ginza on a Friday night. The scene- two geishas ushering a half dozen drunken corporate types into a taxi, the impeccable white lace doilies in the taxi’s backseat looked like they were in big trouble. We entered through the back of a back alley office building and took an elevator shockingly poor by Tokyo standards carrying us two stories down, underground to Little Smith. Very prohibition era, the feeling was Rita Hayworth in sequins is going to turn up tipsy. The bartenders with heavy hair gel, bow ties and crisp white shirts shake textbook-perfect classic cocktails in gleaming vintage shakers. It was the coolest, old-schoolest drinking I have done behind a hand-hewn wooden bar.
Antoine's friend Paul says "omakase" and the bartender smiles instantly. His name is Mimi. The phrase is usually spoken to sushi chefs when you want them to devise a special tasting menu. It means "I trust you." It also means you are either filthy rich or stinking drunk, preferably both. He instantly earns my trust by not saving on Ukrainian vodka and a whole cooked tomato - an artisanal Bloody Mary. He brakes an egg and makes le soleil, and several sherry martinis, and a dozen Ginza mules, and by the time Suntory whiskey came out of nowhere the group we were with had attempted to leave twice, they would stand up and sit down again, i might have hallucinated the spaghetti bolognese with oysters, but my memory was somewhat restored after the fact...
Historically, the Meiji period in Japan also just happened to coincide with the golden age of the cocktail in Europe and America. The Meiji ‘Enlightened rule’ began in 1867 when the 15 year old Mutsuhito ascended the Chrysanthemum Throne as the 122nd emperor. Meiji restoration consisted of five major provisions, but here I would like to mention just one- Replacement of "evil customs" with the "just laws of nature" and “an international search for knowledge to strengthen the foundations of imperial rule”.)
So translated loosely, in imperial Japan the just laws of nature were introduced at the same time as the cocktail.
The first cocktails were served in Tokyo in Ginza cafés like Café Printemps and Café Lion, which employed bartenders who'd learned the craft at the luxury hotels of Asia. They made the Bamboo and the Million Dollar and the Singapore Sling, cocktails first served at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore while Japan was still very much enjoying the complete isolation from all things western. But the nature of the Japanese is obsessive compulsive so they wouldn't allow a better drink to exist anywhere outside their pricey Ginza. I would not be surprised to learn of a bartender who met his death mixing the perfect drink.
Tokyo has shone a new light on what I call classy booze (my louche behavior notwithstanding)
I bow to them.
