Tamura SakeBar

Where a Japanese counter would normally put a chef, this jet-black Gertrude Street room puts a turntable. Opened by a husband-and-wife pair in 2019, it folds three of their preoccupations, sake, records and unfussy bar snacks, into a single 30-seat space that reads as much as a listening bar as a diner. The drinks list is the serious part: what the owner calls third-wave sake, the newer, expressive styles coming from microbreweries and a younger generation of brewers, poured for people who may not yet know they like it. The walls carry a happy clutter of bonsai, vintage electronics and Japanese kitsch, and the vinyl stacked around the room, much of it carried back from Tokyo, is for sale as well as for spinning. Food stays in izakaya territory and is meant to keep pace with the drinking: bright, crisp karaage, yakitori, and small plates built for grazing rather than occasion. The mood is communal and warm, the kind of narrow bar where a stranger's record request becomes the evening's conversation. It has since grown into a small local family with a larger izakaya nearby, but this original room remains the intimate heart of the idea: sake, sound and a seat at the bar.