Why you should experience Bar Trench in Tokyo, Japan.
Bar Trench is an intimate cocktail bar where Ebisu's independent nightlife, Rogerio Igarashi Vaz's Brazilian-Japanese background, an exceptional collection of bitters and a deep commitment to absinthe give thirteen seats an international reputation far beyond their backstreet address.
Set along a narrow lane near Komazawa-dori and just steps from Ebisu Station, the bar occupies the ground floor at 1-5-8 Ebisunishi behind a wood-and-glass facade, with exposed brick, dark timber and shelves of spirits enclosing the compact counter. Absinthe receives traditional service through chilled water and a sugar cube, and herbal liqueurs including Chartreuse and Picon extend the botanical range through drinks assembled with house bitters and carefully selected spirits. Vaz moves comfortably between historic cocktails and original compositions, using amari, mezcal, whisky, gin and herbal distillates to build drinks whose complexity comes through balance and precision. The result is an Ebisu bar where thirteen seats, a formidable botanical arsenal and fifteen years of disciplined cocktail work produce one of Tokyo's most accomplished small-room drinking experiences.
What you should know about Bar Trench.
Bar Trench is best known for opening on February 1, 2010 as the second bar in the Small Axe operation, seven years after Bar Tram began the company's relationship with absinthe and herbal spirits in Ebisu. Rogerio Igarashi Vaz developed Trench with Small Axe founder Takuo Ito after a Bar Tram regular offered a former curtain showroom that the team had initially considered for office space. Small Axe launched its Absinthe-Tokyo web shop and began importing Mansinthe in May 2010, followed by Monkey 47 Gin and Bob's Bitters in August 2012 and Tempus Fugit Spirits imports in 2015, giving the company's specialist distribution business a direct relationship with the bottles behind its bars. Bar Trench entered The World's 50 Best Bars extended ranking at No.65 in 2018 and No.85 in 2019, then reached No.43 on Asia's 50 Best Bars in 2021. The bar returned to The World's 50 Best Bars extended list at No.94 in 2025, with the organization highlighting Vaz, absinthe and the European direction of the cocktail program. Small Axe expanded the Trench name to Kyoto in March 2026, opening its first Kansai outpost inside a 120-year-old machiya and extending a concept born in a thirteen-seat Ebisu room into another Japanese city sixteen years after its debut.
Absinthe gives the drinks program its most recognizable historical anchor, arriving with an absinthe fountain, cold water and sugar cube through a service associated with the spirit's nineteenth-century European drinking culture. Black Manhattan moves into amaro territory, replacing the familiar sweet-vermouth component with a darker herbal profile under Vaz's direction. Catcher in the Rye combines whisky, rye-bread-infused vermouth and absinthe, building grain and anise into a drink whose ingredients connect the cocktail's base spirit directly with the bread infusion. Laphroaig Project introduces Islay smoke beside yellow Chartreuse and lemon, giving peat, herbs and citrus clearly separated roles within the glass. Japan's largest bitters collection forms another defining component of the back bar, expanding the bartender's seasoning range across aromatic, herbal and spice-driven preparations.
How to fold Bar Trench into your trip.
Bar Trench works as the evening destination within an Ebisu route connecting the neighborhood's brewing origins, a major photography institution and a museum devoted to the long history of one of Japan's principal beer brands.
Begin at Yebisu Garden Place, opened in 1994 on the former site of the brewery where Japan Beer Brewery Company began producing Yebisu Beer in 1890. The beer became so closely associated with the surrounding area that the nearby railway stop adopted the Ebisu name in 1906, followed by the neighborhood itself, leaving the contemporary district with a name inherited directly from the brewery. Continue to Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, conceived as part of the Yebisu Garden Place development and fully opened in January 1995 as Japan's first comprehensive public museum devoted to photography and moving images. The institution holds tens of thousands of works spanning early photographic processes, Japanese masters and international practitioners, giving Ebisu a substantial cultural collection inside the former brewery grounds. Conclude at Yebisu Brewery Tokyo, opened by Sapporo Breweries in April 2024 on the historic Yebisu site, returning brewing to the neighborhood after production there ended in 1988. A brewing facility, exhibition galleries and tasting salon reconnect the contemporary complex with the beer first made there in 1890 and the name that subsequently passed to the station and district. Bar Trench closes the development across Ebisu in Ebisunishi, where Vaz's thirteen-seat room shifts the neighborhood's drinks history from industrial brewing toward absinthe, bitters and contemporary cocktails.
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