The Best Hotel Bars in Tokyo

Hidden away on the fourth floor of the Grand Hyatt Hotel, Maduro Bar is difficult to find unless you're hunting for it. Once inside the sweeping, golden-lit space, settle into a leather chair for a flight of whiskey, or one of the bar's seasonal cocktails in what is undoubtedly one of the most civilized places to have a drink in all of Tokyo. (Maduro Bar: 港区六本木6-10-3, 4F)

Despite its singularly spectacular views, this is one of the rare rooftop bars that does not charge a cover. Dually unusual is its almost entirely female staff of bartenders. (Bartending is still a heavily male-dominated profession in Japan.) Like the food, cocktails are seasonal and full of regional specialties that call for ingredients like yuzu, sakura (cherry blossom) and sparkling sake. (Mandarin Bar: 中央区日本橋室町2-1-1, 37F)

Located on the 52nd floor of the Hyatt, the New York Bar is perhaps best known for playing a starring role in Sofia Coppola’s 2003 movie Lost in Translation. While classic cocktails shine, the original drinks—whose names are reminiscent of the bar's namesake city—are equally good, as is the long list of domestic and international whiskies. (New York Bar: 新宿区西新宿3-7-1-2, 52F)

The Imperial Hotel (Teikoku Hotel in Japanese) was originally designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in the 1920s. Relics from that time remain, including furniture and fixtures that now sit within the Old Imperial Bar. Quiet, dark and tucked away on the mezzanine level, it's a peaceful break from the lobby bar, which can be boisterous at nearly all times of the day. The bar churns out the classics alongside a few drinks from its own canon, like the Mount Fuji, which was created in 1924 to memorialize the Great Kanto Earthquake. (Old Imperial Bar: 千代田区内幸町1-1-1)