Sixty-Two Dishes and Two Hundred and Twenty Drinks. Here Is How to Order.

People open our menu and go quiet. I know the look. It is 282 items and nobody wants to admit they do not know where to start.

So here is the whole thing, plainly.

The Numbers Tell You What This Place Is

Sixty-two dishes. Two hundred and twenty drinks.

That ratio is not an oversight, it is the definition. An izakaya is a drinks-led format, and food follows the drinking rather than the other way round. Fifty-eight bottles under whisky and dark spirits, thirty-three shochu, thirty sake, and eight sections of food. Those numbers move, because the list moves.

Once you know that, the menu stops being a wall. You are not choosing a meal. You are choosing a drink, and then things to eat while you have it.

How Much to Actually Order

This is where most tables get it wrong, and they get it wrong by under-ordering.

The plates are small. That is the format, not a portion problem. So order apps for the table and double up on the ones you want, because one order of something between four people is a taste, not a dish.

Then, if you want a proper meal out of it, get a main each. A bowl of ramen per person is the simplest version of that and it is what I would do.

Apps to share, doubled, plus a main each. That is the shape of a good order here.

What to Order

If you want to be told, these are the three I would put in front of you first.

Wasabi Shake Shake Fries. They come in a bag with the seasoning and you shake them yourself. The wasabi heat goes up through your nose and clears, rather than sitting on your tongue. It is the one people film.

Brown Butter Miso Ramen. Miso pork broth, chashu, bamboo, spinach, egg, and brown butter through it. It is the bowl I would put against anything else in the neighbourhood.

Garlic-sauteed edamame. Pan-sauteed in the pod with garlic butter and rock salt. We call it possibly the best edamame ever on the menu, which is a big claim we keep making because people keep agreeing with it.

Beyond those three, skewers are the oldest izakaya food there is and the grill is the heart of this kitchen, karaage is fried and salty and made to sit next to a beer, and takowasa is small and sharp and specifically designed to make you order another drink.

Food Arrives When It Is Ready

Not matched up as a table. That is not us being disorganised, it is the format working correctly.

There is no appetiser course and no main course. Things come out as they are done. If you wait for everyone's food to land together it will be cold before it does, so start eating when yours arrives.

About Those Two Hundred Drinks

Do not read the whisky list. Fifty-eight bottles is not a list you read, it is a list you ask about.

Tell whoever is pouring one sentence about what you normally drink. That is genuinely all we need. "I like a smoky Scotch." "I drink tequila." "I want something I cannot get anywhere else." "Nothing that tastes like alcohol." Every one of those gets you to the right glass in under a minute.

If you want the thing that is most ours, ask about the shochu. Thirty-three of them, most people have never had any, and it is the category where we can show you something genuinely new.

If you want a beer and no conversation, that is also a completely respectable order.

One Thing We Do Not Do

No otoshi. In Japan you sit down and a small dish arrives that you did not order and are charged for. It is normal there and it does not translate, so we do not do it. Nothing arrives at your table that you did not ask for.

The Things That Trip People Up

Ordering one of something for four people. Double it.

Waiting for everyone's food to arrive together. It will not. Start eating.

Treating the small plates as starters and then not ordering a main. They can be the meal, but only if you order like they are.

Trying to decode the drink list alone. Ask. That is the job, and it is the good part of the job.

If You Read Nothing Else

Apps for the table, doubled. A main each. Ask about the drink.

The menu is long because the format is generous, not because it is a test.