Toilet is a bar, a small bar with a narrow staircase, an unmarked door, signless, near Shinjuku Park, an ever so slight lunge from the neon-lit gay quarter in East Shinjuku. Toilet seats say, nine people at the bar, and has maybe two or three tiny tables; but has two upright pianos so I guess that’s two more seats, and a bathtub so, depending on how close you are to your group of friends or some strangers you just met, maybe another six if you sit around the edge with your feet in the water.

There is a small selection of drinks on offer, but nothing too fancy. Mostly mixed with soda and ice. There is homemade fruit liquor. No menu, no complex cocktails, nothing shaken or loud; no energetic over the top barman playing serious, gazing stoically through the window at imaginary mountain ranges. You may get some nuts to go with your drink or if you’re lucky some oden (a Japanese one pot winter dish).

As you sit by an oil lamp you notice the oversized photograph by New York-based artist Ryan McGinley. You will either love or hate it because it takes up most of the wall and forces you to contemplate a carefree nude throwing himself across a rural landscape, hurtling across what seems to be giant hay bales. The photograph was gifted to co-managers Hiroshi Take and Ami Endo from entrepreneur-cum-business backer Masamichi Toyama. Take-san worked for Toyama-san at cult modern recycle store Pass the Baton, and when he mentioned his idea of starting a bar, Toyama-san agreed to support him in the venture. “Toyama-san is a real ideas man, and also good at business mindset too.” says Take-san, “He is both charming and mysterious”.

When I first heard about Toilet I couldn’t get my head around the name. Why name your bar after a place where you, well, go to the toilet? But the name has grown on me and surprisingly makes more sense each time I visit. It’s actually perhaps the best bar name I have encountered in Japan, or even outside Japan for that matter. It’s like that song on a record you hate the first thirty listens until eventually it climbs in under the skin to stay.

Take-san had never tried his hand at running a bar, but from the outset had an unerring instinct and a set of unusual ideas. Talking about the name he says, “We were tossing up between Bathroom and Toilet, and thought Bathroom sounded a little too stylish.” From the beginning, he was clear about “wanting to make a place where people could come by themselves and just zone out, daydream a bit, like you do on the toilet”. He goes on to explain about choosing Ami-san as his partner: “I wanted to make a beautiful space. I wanted someone with a certain presence. Of course she’s beautiful. But she’s also a little strange. She doesn’t talk much. But she’s got this presence.”

Chatting about the ideas for his bar, I ask him how he came up with the concept and did he have a clear idea of the space? “No,” he says, “I had a sketch on a piece of paper…of a long table and one customer sitting at the very end of the table, and Ami-san standing behind the bar, a little off centre, maybe smoking. I imagined a diagonal line between Ami-san standing, and the customer sitting. No-one talking, but just one customer with a softened face looking relaxed, and I thought that would be really beautiful”. Eye level was also important to Take-san who deliberately chose not to use bar stools or cafe seats, but something in between, so customers are not in his direct line of sight. “I thought it would be more relaxing like that,” he explains.

Toilet holds events and has live music, hence the pianos (originally there was one, but now there are two, apparently because people like to play piano together). Clogging up a space this small seems a little on the nose – it must be the only place in the world this size to contain two pianos (and a bathtub)! On Wednesdays and Fridays it is mainly jazz, and on Saturdays a young group of classical musicians play amazing music for tips. You could also chance upon a burlesque dancer or an accordion player. Take-san even muses about somehow turning the place into a movie theatre one day.

After Toilet, I’m thinking about what actually makes a good bar. What makes you want to return to a bar time and time again? I find it hard sometimes to keep up with all the new places, the flashy, the busy, the buzz, the constant things everywhere.

Toilet is a special bar because you feel like you are in a toilet. It feels strangely familiar, like you are at home. There are no overwhelming choices to be made; you order a basic drink, you could have a bath if you feel like one, sit in real silence, and reflect on your own thoughts. Maybe you’ll have a quiet conversation, or just look at Ryan McGinley’s photograph of a nude man leaping into the sky and consider the marvel of life, and wonder where everyone is, and why they aren’t at Toilet, and you forget yourself.

—
Bar Toilet

1-16-9 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo
Tel:03-3226-5678
Open: 8pm-5am Seven days a week

HP http://bartoilet.blogspot.jp/

—
Vaughan is hosting Intimate jazz nights at Bar Toilet, featuring Marty Hicks on the keys, and James Macaulay on the trombone, both young yet renowned jazz musicians from Melbourne Australia. This Tuesday (5/15) from 8:30pm.

http://www.jamesmacaulay.com.au
http://www.martyhicks.com