Fifteen Seats, Three Seatings, One Bartender Growing His Own Botanicals
Hiroyasu Kayama grows botanicals on the bar's own field and builds every drink to order at a fifteen-seat counter on the ninth floor of a Nishi-Shinjuku office building. Getting in is the review.
Behind the counter, a wall of glass jars — wormwood, fennel, yuzu peel, things macerating in things — and a mortar and pestle Hiroyasu Kayama actually uses. He asks what you like. Not what you want to order. What you like. There is no menu to hand over, and the drink he builds from that answer is made in front of you, at conversation distance, on a walnut counter that seats fifteen.
Kayama runs Benfiddich from the ninth floor of the Yamatoya Building in Nishi-Shinjuku, and it was No. 18 on the World's 50 Best Bars in 2025. He grows botanicals on the bar's own field — juniper among them — and calls what comes of it farm to glass. The bar is the working end of a farm, and it runs when the farmer is in town.
The bartender grew what is in your glass, and the bar does not open when he is away.
Editorial Deep
The programme is farm-to-glass in a way most rooms using that phrase are not; the botanicals come from the bar's own field. Judged against the modern-counter tier — the bartender-led, menu-less rooms that have redefined the format — the pour lands at the top of what the format can do.
Sit at the middle of the counter if you have a choice at booking — the mortar work, the stirring, the pouring all happen there. The far ends put you a seat away from the show, which at a fifteen-seat room is a real distance. The ninth-floor address is ordinary for Tokyo; the elevator is the door.
Order this
Drink this.
Tell him what you like and take what he builds; the seasonal Mori Cocktail when it's on
“Book on the 20th: fifteen seats, three seatings, and the bar closes when Kayama is away.”
One of the best modern cocktail counters in Tokyo, and the operating system is the review. Reservations open on the 20th of each month via TableCheck for the following month, at fixed 19:00, 21:00 and 23:00 seatings, and Kayama posts his working calendar on Instagram the same day — the bar is closed when he is traveling. Fifteen seats along a walnut counter, no menu, every drink built to what you tell him you like. Go for the pour and the proximity; skip if you want a menu to read or a room to disappear into. The 15-minute grace on each seating is real — miss it and the booking is cancelled.
The Verdict
