Finding a decent cocktail bar in the city is easy. Finding one that is entertaining and creative, while also offering quality drinks, is a rarity. Newjack delivers on all these points. Founder and Yokohama native Keisuke Yamamoto relies on his twelve years of bartending experience to always keep things fresh at his establishment.
The bar’s name derives from the music genre new jack swing–a style often pumping from the bar speakers along with hip hop and underground grooves. Like the music, the philosophy here is to pay tribute to classic cocktail styles while using them as a base for innovative mixology. Newjack’s bartenders employ ingredients as varied as vegetables, yuzu, coriander, and even smoke in their creations. They focus on presentation, as well. The cocktails come in fancy vessels such as a pineapple-shaped goblet or a sake masu, but ‘flair bartending’ (think Tom Cruise in the movie Cocktail) is also part of the experience. A large trophy case at the entrance validates the skills of Newjack’s flairmen/mixologists.
The bar offers over 40 signature cocktails (¥900~) with new varieties introduced almost weekly. Staff will also make any cocktail you request. The food menu ranges from standards like Roasted Beef Steak (¥1280) and Fish & Chips (¥1080) to daily specials like Mussels Steamed in White Wine (¥1080) and Buffalo Wings (¥880) when we visited.
Newjack is dimly lit for ambiance, with seating for about 50. Clientele runs the gamut from 20-somethings to senior cocktail fans. Smoking is allowed at the bar counter, but not in the offset table area. The bartenders can speak adequate English, too, if you don’t know Japanese.