Issue 47 | 5 Minutes with Hisashi Watanabe & Ioanna Morelli, Bar Gyu+
Top: Hisashi Watanabe & Ioanna Morelli / Bar Gyu+ / Images by @Aaron Jamieson, courtesy of Bar Gyu+
Enter through a tiny fridge door into a small waiting room, where co-owner of Bar Gyu+, Ioanna Morelli, greets you by name. Here, you catch glimpses of the dimly lit, cosy interior and hear lively conversations above cool tunes from the bar as people make their way out. “Hi [your name], good to see you! Come through!” as she ushers you and your friends in. “We are busy tonight, I have a seat for you at the bar,” says Ioanna. You feel immediately welcome. You glance around – a bartender is making cocktails, and co-owner Hisashi Watanabe is at the decks. Framing them is a large picture-frame window, and through it, you see soft powdery snow falling in streaks of white.
It’s buzzing in Niseko this winter! How’s it been for Bar Gyu+ so far this season?
Hisashi (H): It’s been great! We were really excited to make a team again.
Ioanna (I): We are in our 24th season this year – we have had a lot of guests who have been coming to the bar for many years. And to see them coming back to the bar after the pandemic has been really heartwarming.
Tell us a little about how it all started 24 years ago.
I: The bar came about when Hisashi built a house where the bar currently is in 1999. He soon realised his friends were coming over and drinking all of his beer, so he thought that if he had a bar, it would mean that he could charge them [laughter]. So Hisashi was ski instructing during the day and running a bar at night. He did that for about 8 years before I met him. We got married right away and we’ve been running the bar together ever since.
That’s amazing. How has Bar Gyu+ evolved over the years?
I: In 2009, Hisashi and I travelled to New York and we got really inspired by the bar scene, and we met a lot of really interesting people. So every summer, we’d spend our summers travelling and getting inspired. We’d bring something back with us, and we’d change the way we did things.
One of the biggest influences was when we went to State Bird Provisions in San Francisco, where we learnt what service at a restaurant or bar could be. We take a lot of these influences and we try to incorporate them in our own style here.
Bar Gyu+ is also known as the ‘Fridge Door Bar’. Can you tell us a bit about Bar Gyu+’s iconic fridge door and how did it come about?
H: One of my friends found a 70s vending machine and brought it over to the bar the second year the bar was open. When I was doing some renovations to the bar – using bales of straw and covering them with concrete to soundproof the building, I remembered the vending machine my friend had given me. It was then that I had the idea to replace the door to the bar with the door of the vending machine. I thought the unusual door could help people find the bar.
What’s new at Bar Gyu+ this season?
I: We wanted people to feel like they were coming home or coming back to a place, and so we avoided changing too much. People have memories of being here a few years ago. When you have a good memory of a place, you often want to go back there, and see that thing again. So that’s true of the bar. We kept our staples pretty much the same.
H: We have booth seating upstairs now. We did a small renovation upstairs to accommodate larger groups of groups of families or friends. We were seeing more groups meet up here, which meant that we needed to have a bit more space for larger groups.
I love the new hand-drawn menu! Are they new drinks and cocktails this year?
I: Thank you! Hisashi hand draws the menu every year!
Hisashi takes a lot of care – from the drinks he selects, the music he selects, to all the little touches.
H: On the menu, we have a Highball page this year. We added a few cocktails, we increased the amount of non-alcohol drinks that we have. And this year, we serve only Hokkaido sake.
I: We also decided to make our own beer. It’s an IPA by a friend’s beer brewing company called Hobo Brewing based in Takamatsu, Shikoku. The beer is called ‘Take Me North’ – a play on the title of the famous 80s Japanese ski movie called ‘私をスキーに連れてって’ (Watashi o ski ni tsuretette), which means ‘Take me skiing’. This IPA would be the type of beer you’d like to drink after skiing – it’s like an après beer.
What are some of your favourite ingredients or flavours to work with when creating new cocktails?
I: We try to keep the menu very simple. We focus on domestic products as much as possible. Our whisky selection is really big, and almost exclusively Japanese whisky. We try to use as many local products as possible. We are excited to serve Japanese wine, made by the newest winery in Yoichi called Low Brow Craft. We are using a lot of Japanese Gins. We have Shakotan Gin, and Gin from Niseko distillery. We use Hokkaido butter and cream, and Yoichi apples.
Bar Gyu+ is known for its laid-back, jazzy atmosphere and great cocktails. How would you describe Bar Gyu+’s experience?
I: We hope that [Bar]Gyu provides a sense of place, that it belongs here in Niseko. It’s about your all-around experience that extends past the bar. As you walk down a snowy street, you’re covered in snow, and you come in and it’s warm inside. And there’s this window, and you see snow falling. It feels a little like a snow globe.
Even from the beginning, we had not thought of [Bar]Gyu as a traditional bar. Hisashi considers Gyu more as an art project. The cocktails are mostly a conduit for conversation. The bar is not so much about showcasing our drinks, it is about you being able to get something delicious, something that has been thought through, so you could enjoy your time with your family and friends.
Do you make your own infusions?
I: Yes, we have a Hinoki Negroni – we infuse negroni with Japanese hinoki (cypress wood). We make champagne vinegar, and we make our syrups in-house. We’d keep our cocktails pretty classic. I’d say Bar Gyu+ is less about mixology and more about hospitality.
Bar Gyu+ has been named one of the ’50 Best – Discovery’, voted by a panel of experts of the ’50 Best’. What’s next for Bar Gyu+, are there any new projects in the works?
We are honoured to be on the list. The ‘50 Best – Discovery’ is a compilation of places all over the world that the panel of experts really like. For this year, we have our limited-edition IPA, and we are having an event with Nikka. We are also looking forward to our summer travels. Next year is our 25th anniversary, so do watch this space!
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Thank you Hisashi and Ioanna!
web: gyubar.com / email: info@gyubar.com / facebook & instagram: gyu_bar
address: 1-50, 2 Jo 3 Chomei, Niseko, Hirafu, Hokkaido 044-0081, Japan