While you might associate sake breweries with rice fields, clear streams and snow-capped mountains, Wakaze is a hip urban hangout where four 200-litre thermal tanks, a compressor, and even a Shinto altar have been squeezed into a 14sqm venue in the heart of Tokyo. Tucked along a buzzy Sangenjaya street, this modern brewery features a small counter-style dining space where you can experience a sake pairing as you learn about the ins and the outs of nihonshu.
Founded in Yamagata – one of Japan’s premier sake-producing regions – in 2016, Wakaze secured a liquor-brewing license in 2018 to make sake in Sangenjaya. It uses traditional brewing methods, along with some new innovations, to make creative sake varieties that pair well with Western cuisine.
The interior feels like a chic café with its concrete walls, timber and white surfaces and ample hanging plants. The menu is also suitably modern, with dishes featuring seasonal ingredients from Yamagata and sometimes seasoned with sake lees. The Japanese-style tapas plates are not to be missed, like the mackerel salad dressed with mustard, and amazake and beef gratin.
The Orbia Sol, aged in red wine barrels, goes excellently with meat and fatty dishes, while the citrus and herbal-driven Fonia Sorra goes well with fish. Don’t miss the house Sangenjaya Doburoku – it’s an unfiltered, thick and cloudy-white sake, rich in umami.
The monthly tasting menu (by reservation only) is offered four days a week from Thursday to Sunday with a capacity of nine people per session. The two and a half hour tasting (including seven dishes and nine types of sake) is offered at 7pm every Thursday and Friday, while tastings for Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays are offered at 5pm and 8pm.