8 best listening bars in Tokyo for vinyl music

Established in 1977, Jazz Inn Uncle Tom is a cherished institution in Tokyo’s music scene. This café was initially opened by the current owner's father and continues as a family-operated business where the owner and his mother personally serve patrons. At Uncle Tom, coffee is a serious affair. Beans are carefully selected, hand-sorted before and after roasting, and roasted on-site using a hand grill. This time-consuming process ensures that only two or three types of coffee beans, chosen for their freshness, are available each day.

The café is also home to an impressive collection of over 3,000 jazz records, providing an authentic listening bar environment. The owner, deeply knowledgeable about jazz, carefully curates the music to reflect the mood of the day, creating a truly immersive experience as he does not entertain musical requests. For those looking to pair their coffee with a bite to eat, the café offers freshly fried chocolate doughnuts, jam butter toast from Chet Bakery, homemade dry curry and handmade hamburgers.

Small but versatile, Spincoaster is a stalwart drinking den near Yoyogi Station that’s good for solo nights out as well as group outings, and outfits ranging from oversized Ts to date night get-ups. With grey, sound-absorbing mesh walls and industrial-style metal chairs, the space is muted in design, but the bar's state-of-the-art Koon speakers ensure that the curated playlist of the night commands the room. 

The music theme depends on the nightly roster of in-house DJs, but genres can range from city pop to alternative rock and New York jazz to Japanese soul. If you see an artist you like on the shelves, you’re welcome to make a song request for a ¥700 charge. The easy-going staff also invite patrons to bring their preferred records from home if they want to hear their favourite songs on a higher-quality sound system, whether it's the soundtrack of a beloved film or an album like Taylor Swift's TTPD.

Little Soul Cafe has been a sanctuary for Shimokitazawa’s music lovers since 1999. This cosy bar opens its doors every evening from 9pm, welcoming patrons into a warmly lit, narrow corridor-like space crammed with over 15,000 vinyl records. These records, a lifetime collection started during the owner's student days, span genres from soulful ’60s tracks to dance music and classical jazz to funk. The bar's relaxed vinyl sessions aim to foster a community feel, making everyone from first-time visitors to regulars feel right at home.

Aside from its rich musical offerings, Little Soul Cafe boasts an impressive drink menu with approximately 450 spirit and cocktail options. The bar takes special pride in its extensive rum selection, featuring over 100 varieties sourced from places like Costa Rica, Peru, the Caribbean islands and beyond. Drink prices start at around ¥800, scaling upwards for premium selections. Note that there is a cover charge of ¥500 per person and the bar operates on a cash-only basis.

Established 40 years ago, the aptly named Grandfather’s started out with a playlist style that was uncommon at the time, blending together rock LPs one song at a time. Today, the tunes are a selection of popular music (mainly AOR and funk and soul) from the ’70s, when vinyl records were mainstream. However, the owner is constantly on the lookout for new music and if a modern artist wins his favour they’ll get some ‘airtime’ too. (We recently heard him spin a few tracks by Joss Stone and Rumer.) After all these years, the interior is still well maintained, giving off a rich ambience that’s appropriate for such a venerable bar and that lends an extra level of charm to the music.

Owned by DJ Tomoaki Nakamura, this bar features everything from jazz to Brazilian music, along with a great selection of wine. The owner's aim was to create a place where you'd be able to listen to both new faves and golden oldies that both feel just as relevant. On certain nights you'll find local spinner Calm behind the decks. Order an Espresso Cooler, made with coffee beans from Nakamura's native Hiroshima, sit back, relax to the eclectic tunes and browse the myriad of records – if you find an album that tickles your fancy, good news: you'll be able to buy it on the spot.

Opened in 1969, B.Y.G boasts three dimly lit floors connected by a spiral staircase while the wood-panneled walls are covered in music posters, framed artist photos and customer-drawn graffiti. Stacked up behind the register area at the front entrance are piles upon piles of CDs and records. When the bar first opened it was primarily a live music venue, but these days the ground floor is exclusively a music cafe, with occasional live music performances limited to the second and basement floors.

Positioned on every table on the main floor are slips of paper and stubby pencils where you can write down song requests and hand them in to your wait staff. Be warned though that the focus here is rock and jazz, so you'll almost certainly be given a look of disdain if you request Taylor Swift, followed by the assurance that they don't have that stuff here. But any classic rock request you can think of will be gladly accepted and is surely somewhere in their stockpiles.

There aren’t many good reasons to get off the Keio line at sleepy Tsutsujigaoka Station, but this shrine to secondhand records and craft beer is one of them. Boasting a selection that covers jazz, world music, classic rock and most genres in between, Garageville has vinyl for every taste and generation. This dedication to diversity is also reflected in the beer lineup: you can choose from about 20 kinds of craft brews from Europe and Asia, in addition to several rarities from minor Japanese breweries. And we’d be remiss not to mention the shop’s super-comfy sofas, which are perfect for relaxing on while taking in smooth tunes with a beer in hand.

At this hideaway wine bar, owner Toshiya Kawasaki takes the Japanese concept of a listening bar – where the proprietor plays their own collection of records on a high-end audio system – and combines it with his love of natural wine. Kawasaki is the owner of Mule Musiq, one of Japan’s leading dance music labels; a DJ himself, Kawasaki regularly plays in North America and Europe and was inspired by the natural wine movement in Paris. At Studio Mule, he sells around 1,000 varieties of natural wine from a personal collection accumulated over the past 10 years, mostly from France and Italy. 

It’s usually Kawasaki pouring the wine and selecting the records, which are played on a top-of-the-line vintage audio system, complete with Klipsch Cornwall speakers, a Thorens turntable and a Mark Levinson amplifier (all coveted items for music buffs, trust us). Bear in mind that there aren't any menus denoting the cost of the drinks here, so remember to double-check the wine prices if you don't want to be surprised when the bill arrives.