In Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood, Toru Watanabe and Midori Kobayashi escape the city’s restless rhythm for an afternoon at DUG, nursing vodka tonics in a dimly lit jazz bar tucked beneath the streets of Shinjuku.
Post the book’s adaptation into a film, Murakami fans began arriving in search of Midori’s drink of choice. In June, the iconic bar saw its last service and performance, as online and offline love poured in from the loyalists across the world.
For nearly six decades, DUG has been one of Tokyo’s most storied jazz kissatens—a place where the volume is turned up, conversations are turned down, and time seems to linger over a drink. Murakami didn’t merely immortalise the bar in his novel; he spent countless hours there himself as a young man, absorbing the music that would later find its way into his fiction.
Finding DUG is an experience in itself. Step out of Shinjuku Station’s East Exit into one of the busiest intersections in the world. Neon signs flash overhead, department stores compete for attention and crowds surge through Tokyo’s entertainment district. Then, almost unexpectedly, a staircase slips underground into another era.
Brick walls replace glass towers. Shelves groan under vinyl records, books and bottles. Wooden tables bear the patina of decades of conversations. The air carries an unmistakable blend of drip coffee, toasted cinnamon bread, brownies, whisky and the lingering trace of cigarette smoke. Framed black-and-white portraits of jazz legends watch silently from the walls. It all began even before DUG existed.
Photographer Hozumi Nakahira (1936-2024), celebrated for pioneering jazz photography in Japan, opened a bar called DIG in 1961. His photographs captured musicians such as John Coltrane and Miles Davis during the explosive years of modern jazz in America. Later in 1967, Nakahira opened DUG in collaboration with architect Katsuki Iwabuchi and graphic designer Makoto Wada. Today, the bar is run by his son, Rui Nakahira, who continues to preserve its character.
DUG emerged during what many regard as the golden age of Japan’s kissaten culture. In the decades following the Second World War, coffee houses became unlikely temples of jazz. Unlike their American counterparts, where jazz thrived amid dancing and drinking, Japanese jazz cafés developed around listening.
“The jazz café culture, specifically focused on listening, is Japan's most distinctive feature. Huge speakers and vast records. Talking is strictly forbidden, and people listen to classic albums for hours with just a cup of coffee,’ says Rui Nakahira.
Today, that etiquette has softened and jazz no longer carries the intimidating aura it once did. “It has become lighter and freer. I feel it has finally become familiar with Japanese life in a good way. The free spirit that jazz possesses has always stirred the hearts of those who are bored. That essence, however, hasn't changed at all.” he smiles.
“I might have made the most vodka tonics in Japan during that period,” he laughs while recalling another unexpected chapter of DUG’s history.