Why you should experience Irish Pub An Sólás in Tokyo, Japan.
Irish Pub An Sólás is a convivial Irish pub where Sendagaya's independent drinking culture, traditional Irish music, imported pub craftsmanship and William Ryan's Irish background converge in a neighborhood room near Yoyogi Station.
Set along a quiet Sendagaya lane near Meiji-dori and just steps from Shinjuku Takashimaya Times Square, the pub surrounds a substantial wooden bar with furniture and decorative pieces brought from Ireland. Victorian Craft converted the former Italian restaurant into the present 66.66-square-meter space, dividing tables in the manner of rural Irish pubs and giving the counter unusual prominence within the compact room. Regular music sessions bring fiddles, flutes, concertinas and other traditional instruments into that setting, turning the pub itself into part of the performance. The result is a Sendagaya pub where imported craftsmanship, Irish ownership and participatory music give the room a cultural specificity unusual in Central Tokyo.
What you should know about Irish Pub An Sólás.
Irish Pub An Sólás is best known for opening in September 2014 through the partnership of Irish owner William Ryan, chef Jun Kano and Chieko Isshiki, three collaborators who divided responsibility for the bar, kitchen and front-of-house operation. Ryan came from Ireland, and the trio built An Sólás around a form of pub culture intended to extend beyond decorative imitation. Victorian Craft transformed a former Italian restaurant into the 20.2-tsubo space, designing an unusually large counter for its footprint and separating the tables into bays modeled on pubs found in rural Ireland. Furniture and decorative pieces imported from Ireland completed the physical connection, giving the founders a purpose-built setting for the kind of social drinking room Ryan knew firsthand. Traditional music became another durable strand of the pub after opening, with hosted sessions bringing musicians together around instruments including fiddle, flute and concertina. An Sólás continues that tradition in 2026, more than a decade after Ryan, Kano and Isshiki opened their Sendagaya pub.
Fish and chips brings the kitchen closest to classic pub cooking, pairing battered fish with crisp potatoes before malt vinegar cuts across the fried coating. Shepherd's pie takes the meal toward lamb beneath a soft potato topping; the beef-based cottage pie provides a closely related route through deeper meat richness. Guinness stew extends that comfort-food progression through slow-cooked beef and stout, giving the beer's roasted bitterness a place in the kitchen as well as the glass. Jameson, Tullamore D.E.W. and Bushmills carry Irish whiskey into the later stages of the evening, especially naturally once a music session gathers momentum around the room. An Sólás draws food, stout, whiskey and traditional music into the same social rhythm, making participation around the bar more important than polished pub theatrics.
How to fold Irish Pub An Sólás into your trip.
Irish Pub An Sólás works as the evening anchor for a route through southern Shinjuku and Sendagaya that traces the district's transformation through late-twentieth-century retail architecture, railway development and major public design.
Begin at Shinjuku Takashimaya Times Square, opened in October 1996 as an 88,000-square-meter complex whose arrival pushed Shinjuku's major commercial geography southward and created a new retail anchor beside the station. Continue to Shinjuku Southern Terrace, completed in 1998 by Sakakura Associates with Taisei Corporation and Odakyu Construction above the Odakyu tracks, realizing part of a “Boulevard Concept” first proposed in 1973. Conclude at Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, where Fumihiko Maki's 1990 reconstruction joined a 120-meter-diameter curved steel roof with the site that had hosted gymnastics during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. The progression moves from Shinjuku's southward commercial expansion through Sakakura Associates' railway-spanning promenade into Maki's grand sports architecture, revealing the ambitious design history surrounding An Sólás before the evening settles around stout and Irish music.
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