Kioku by Endo Bar
Behind the bar there is a small refrigerated room with "Sake Safe" written on the door, and inside it are over a hundred sake chosen by the woman who wrote WSET's sake qualification.
Why go
Endo Kazutoshi asked Natsuki Kikuya to build the drinks programme here. She was given the title Sake Samurai in 2015, poured at Zuma and Roka, and founded the sake programme at WSET, which now teaches its Level 1 Award in Sake in this room (Kioku; WSET). The list runs to nearly forty pages and over a hundred bottles, including four sake made in the UK and a run of rice varietals down to unpolished brown rice (Wallpaper*). The bar calls it the largest sake collection in Europe, which is its own claim and is written here as one.
The format is a Japanese listening bar: twenty-five seats, a turntable at one end, guest-curated playlists, jazz kept under the conversation. The cocktails do their own work rather than coasting on the sake, with a caramel made from sake lees in one build and fermented ginger and preserved yuzu in another (Hot Dinners).
Two rooms, one building. This page is the ground-floor Kioku Sake Bar, in through Whitehall Place, open Wednesday to Saturday only. Kioku by Endo, the 55-seat restaurant with the chef's table and the terraces, is on the roof and keeps different hours. Take the lift up from the bar if you want both.
Order this / avoid
- Order: by the glass or the pot, which starts around GBP 11 and is how to drink across the list rather than committing to a bottle. Then the Kinoko, which is Japanese whisky and three-year-old koshu sake with roasted hazelnut, mocha vinegar and that sake-lees caramel, or the Goma, built on toasted sesame spirit and sesame shochu.
- Avoid: Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, when the bar is shut while the restaurant upstairs is trading. Avoid walking in on spec too, with twenty-five seats and the last reservation an hour before close.
What locals & experts say
- Neil Ridley, in Wallpaper,* 30 September 2024, picking London's four best sake bars: "Kioku by Endo, a cosy bar in the Raffles London at The OWO, is a treasure trove of incredible expressions. The list, or bible, as the bar calls it, curated by 'Sake Samurai' Natsuki Kikuya, sees over 100 types to choose from, including classic brands, more modern, craft expressions (including four created in the UK,) aged sake and a distinct focus on rice varietals."2
- Gavin Hanly, Hot Dinners, 18 June 2024:
This bar on the ground floor of the OWO is easily one of the most beautifully designed bars we've ever come across in London.
On the drinking:there's a near 40-page list to check out which will make aficionados happy, but it's also the ideal place to get a recommendation if your sake know-how isn't quite up to par.
3 - WSET teaches here, which is the hardest credential on this page. The trade body that certifies sake knowledge runs its Level 1 award in this bar, and the woman who built the list wrote that programme.5
- No bartender is on record about it. London's industry-recommendation corpus holds 622 picks from working chefs, bartenders and operators and none of them names this bar.
Good to know
- Where: ground floor of The OWO, in from Whitehall Place. The FSA registers the address as Old War Office, Whitehall, SW1A 2BX; Wallpaper* prints 2 Whitehall Place, SW1A 2BD. Same door.
- Timing: Wednesday and Thursday 6pm to midnight, Friday and Saturday 6pm to 1am, closed Sunday to Tuesday. Last reservation is an hour before close.
- Size: 25 seated. Up to 40 standing for a private hire.
- Price: sake from about GBP 11 by the glass or pot; bottles from GBP 90 for around 72cl with most over GBP 100. Cocktails GBP 22. A 230cl Dassai Beyond runs to GBP 3,200 if the evening goes that way.
- Not drinking: low-ABV and alcohol-free options are on the menu, stated by the bar.
- Hygiene: FSA rating 5, FHRSID 1752403, inspected 20 March 2026, Westminster.6
- Michelin: none, and a bar sits outside the guide's usual scope. Endo Kazutoshi's starred restaurant is Endo at the Rotunda in White City, not this address.
Verdict
should-visit — Twenty-five seats on the ground floor of the Old War Office, a turntable at one end, and a refrigerated room behind the bar labelled Sake Safe holding over a hundred sake. The list was built by Natsuki Kikuya, who was given the title Sake Samurai in 2015 and who wrote WSET's sake qualification, and WSET now teaches its Level 1 award in this room, which is a harder credential than any bar award. Craft here is depth rather than movement, so the case is the numbers: a near forty-page book, four UK-made sakes among the classics, and a stated focus on rice varietals down to unpolished brown rice. Neil Ridley called it 'a treasure trove of incredible expressions' when he picked London's four best sake bars for Wallpaper*. The cocktails are not filler either: a sake-lees caramel in one build and fermented ginger with preserved yuzu in another is real in-house work rather than a bought spec. Worth rearranging an evening for, and it is only open Wednesday to Saturday. It stops short of the top rung because the evidence is two bylined write-ups and the bar's own page, with no competition result, no verified award, and no working bartender on record naming it.