nokishita711 Gin and cocktail labo — Restaurant in Kyoto

Bottom line: There are better places to spend your time and better people to spend it with. Go to Bee's Knees instead.

I've been to hundreds of cocktail bars across Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Tokyo, Kyoto, Hong Kong, and Singapore. This is one of the worst I've ever been to. The service is awful, the interior is awkward, and the drinks are all concept with no kick.

The menu looked interesting and I was pretty excited until the cocktails started coming out. If you've ever had a sour beer, they basically taste like flat, uncarbonated versions of sour beer. I would recommend you drink Shiga Kogen's "yamabushi" sour beer series over drinking any of the cocktails at this bar. The cocktails also have almost no alcohol in them, so after two hours you're not likely to even get a slight buzz.

Based on other reviews, it sounds like the service is hit or miss. It was definitely MISS with us. The bartender was awkward and played clear favorites with his customers, completely ignoring us in favor of the two dorks across the table from us. He was annoyed that I can't have gluten even though I clearly stated it in the reservation request a week before.

The interior is a mess. Just because things two things are old doesn't mean they work together. It's like someone farted at a flea market and the wind blew all the objects into his bar. And then for some reason decided to blast aggressive hip hop for an "elegant," overly conceptual cocktail tasting. Disaster.

I don't know what's wrong with the bartender but he clearly doesn't like his life. The experience was incredibly pretentious without the quality to justify it. I bet he can't take constructive criticism, so he just keeps making bad cocktails for smaller and smaller groups, tricking naive people into thinking he's a good bartender as he thoughtlessly slams 10 gross ingredients together without alcohol.

He's forgotten the fundamentals of bartending: balanced drinks and a welcoming environment. Go support someone who cares...

If you haven’t read through the low Google reviews, I highly recommend that you do before deciding to go to this bar. While they have received a large number of decent reviews, I didn’t believe the comments left in the low reviews until I experienced it myself the other night.

I had previously come to this bar with my American friends, and had a great time. Decent cocktails, spent time with my friends, but didn’t engage with the bartender other than when I ordered a drink. I enjoyed my first experience, so wanted to take my Japanese colleagues to the bar — and it was exactly as what had been written in previous reviews. If you walk into the bar NOT speaking English, or look as though you cannot speak English, are Japanese (I am Japanese-American), of non-European descent, then you will receive possibly the worst service of your life. The bartender (with black glasses) didn’t invite us to the bar counter, did not acknowledge my colleagues, and haphazardly threw us the drink menu.

If the bar were packed, I may have thought he was busy and flustered, but there were maybe 3 other groups. He ignored my colleagues’ requests (she is Japanese), but welcomed a European couple with a smile, and found them a space along the bar counter. Meanwhile, he left left us standing at the door so we had to ask if it was okay to enter and order drinks (received no response from him).

While, yes, they have a cool website with nice photos, the bartender’s attitude ruined the entire experience and bar’s reputation. We walked out without ordering.

There are so many other cool bars in Kyoto that serve amazing drinks, have a great atmosphere, and where they will treat all customers with respect! Please go and support those bars!

I’m embarrassed for this establishment, but the bartender...

The greater the expectation, the greater the disappointment!

We came to Nokishita711 Liquid Cuisine after reading glowing recommendations on TripAdvisor and Reddit. I’ll try to summarize our experience briefly:

The interior design is nice, but the tableware was not clean — some pieces were even chipped, and many of the metal dishes were rusty. I understand this might be an intentional design choice, but in this case, the line between “unique luxury” and “poor taste” has clearly been crossed. Additionally, the plating was very simple and visually uninteresting.

The menu states that sustainability is not a concern in ingredient selection and that choices are made purely for culinary reasons. However, the fact that both the dishes and the cocktails are made from the same ingredients made the experience feel lazy and repetitive.

The host was barely present — he said almost nothing beyond short, unclear explanations about the dishes. Even when we tried to engage him in conversation, he seemed to avoid it. The only time he spoke clearly was when asking how we wanted to pay.

The dishes and cocktails were small, lacked balance or precision in flavor, and many were simply bland or forgettable.

The price is outrageously high for what you actually get — you can find far better value almost anywhere else.

In conclusion: A nice idea, terribly executed, and absurdly overpriced. It feels like a tourist trap with great PR — just like in The Emperor’s New Clothes, no one dares to say the emperor...