A gleaming art-deco bar at the Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo at Otemachi has won the Michter’s Art of Hospitality Award as part of Asia’s 50 Best Bars 2024. We meet the team behind the stick to find out how it has managed to redefine service in a city already famous for it
The Virtù bar team members are, by their own admission, an eclectic bunch. You can easily imagine them as the cast of a sitcom about the wacky adventures of mismatched housemates.
There’s the soft-spoken Sakura Ishii, who honed her bar skills in Tokyo’s elite Ginza district. There’s the bear-sized, ex-flair bartender Graham Kimura from California, who has a voice loud enough to cut through any room and lives by the motto: ‘If it’s not fun, why do it?’
They’re joined by Anup Lamsal, a fast-talking former professional footballer from Nepal and new hire Maria Francisca, the polished polyglot graduate from a Swiss hospitality school.
With a patchwork of 11 other characters, they provide what this year’s Asia’s 50 Best Bars Academy has voted as the best hospitality on the continent. And, says Keith Motsi — the Zimbabwe-born, England-bred architecture school dropout who conducts this diverse orchestra as head bartender — it’s celebrating their marked differences that has led them to this award.
Zimbabwe-born Keith Motsi was raised in England before he moved to work in bars across Asia
“Tokyo is one of the most visited places on the planet,” Motsi says. “We have hundreds of different people with hundreds of different personalities coming through the door. For me, the essence of hospitality is providing a warm atmosphere for people to be themselves. That goes for guests and our team as well. Some people are incredibly subtle — and Graham is…”
“…sometimes not luxury enough!” interjects Kimura from across the bar, who follows his interruption with a cackle of laughter.
There’s a personality and a service style for everyone at Virtù and figuring out which one will best suit a guest begins before they have even set foot through the door. The team is already clued up about your reason for staying at the hotel, whether that’s for a birthday, anniversary or for work. If you are a local who has been there before, chances are you swapped business cards with a server who has then created a profile to help make your next visit even smoother and more personal.
Since Virtù maintains an egalitarian no-reservations policy, identifying who just walked through the door is the task of people such as senior server Konomi Sekikawa and bar manager McHayla Killoran. They will strike up a conversation as they guide you to a seat and the information they glean — which they call ‘golden nuggets’— will be transmitted imperceptibly to other members of the crew.
“That conversation is linked to our quality of service,” says Sekikawa. So, when a bartender comes to your table knowing exactly how to break the ice, it’s not by chance. “I like to make sure every team member learns something from every table,” confirms Killoran.
The interior of Virtù is a blend of Parisian and Japanese luxury
Things weren't always this way at Virtù. It was, initially, a quiet bar. The luxury accoutrements were all in place — the art-deco interior with Japanese fabrics and artwork from both east and west; the collection of fine Cognacs and Japanese whiskies; world-class cocktails blending Japanese and French ingredients and even a long communal table down the middle of the bar designed to foster social interactions — but the room was a sanctuary of calm.
That was, in part, because it opened in September 2020 when Tokyo’s government still had Covid-related drinking restrictions in place. But it was also Virtù’s P.M. period: Pre-Motsi.
After helming Four Seasons bars in Beijing and Seoul, Motsi was enticed to Tokyo in July 2022 to inject some spark into the bar. His colleagues describe his arrival and the style that he brought as ‘a surprise’, ‘a breath of fresh air’ and a ‘ruckus’ that ‘broke the system in the best way possible’.
Motsi and team aim to break down pre-conceptions about luxury hotel bars
Five-star hotels, Motsi says, can be intimidating, terrifying and pretentious. “You walk in, it’s grand, it’s luxury, the doors open and your pockets are already crying,” he says. He also wasn’t convinced by the distance that Japanese bartenders maintain from their guests. “It’s a bit standoffish,” he says. “The first thing over the years has been to close that gap, giving a hug to the customer — in short, a human touch.”
He told his team to stop trying to perform and be who they really are. He persuaded them they could be five-star professionals without being too serious and he wanted them to spend quality time with their guests.
Killoran says they were all ‘surprised’ (translation: slightly frustrated) at first by how long their new captain would spend at a single table. Now, she says, they all see the value of it. If your cocktail has a spirit or liqueur you haven’t heard of before, your server might bring the bottle and perhaps a tasting pour to your table. If you mention how deliciously rich and tangy the signature highball is, Anup might invite you to the aging room where he keeps jars galore of the key ingredient: Michter’s whiskey infused with ume plums and crystal sugar. And, if you ask to take a photo of senior bartender Graham Kimura in a calm moment, you will probably end up behind the bar, in the shot, arms around shoulders, literally closing that bartender-guest gap.
Motsi didn’t convince everyone, of course. Some left for pastures more traditional. And some stuck around but needed persuading. Kimura says that the first time everyone bought into the new way was the summer of 2023, a year after Motsi’s arrival, when Virtù was named the highest new entry in the Asia’s 50 Best Bars list. “That’s when we all knew we were doing something right,” he says.
Virtù took home the Disaronno Highest New Entry Award at the 2023 awards ceremony
But when Motsi talks about how Virtù earned its latest accolade, it’s less huge changes and more daily improvements. He uses the Japanese business term Kaizen, which refers to constant small enhancements. “We never stop. I drive everyone mad,” he says. “But we have to keep refining the experience for guests and team.” Recently they’ve redesigned the coasters, the menu covers and the ice cabinet and now Motsi wants to find better footwear for the women in his team. “They’re very cabin attendant and they look so uncomfortable to stand in all day.”
Motsi, who also won the Altos Bartenders’ Bartender award as part of Asia’s 50 Best Bars 2022, is now in high demand for guest bartending shifts worldwide, but he refuses to travel without at least one other member of the team. “It’s great for their development to see what’s outside their home and comfort zone and I want them to raise their own profile,” he says.
And, of course, Virtù isn’t a Keith Motsi vehicle. It’s a bar that runs on 15 contrasting personalities, driving in the same direction in very different ways.
“In the end, what we always say is: be true to yourself,” explains Motsi. “Be authentic.”
“And have fun,” adds Kimura.
“Ah yes,” says Motsi. “For him, mainly it’s to have fun.”
It’s this pioneering approach to authentic service with a dash of unexpected fun in a city that can be famously austere that has earned Virtù and the team behind it the Michter’s Art of Hospitality Award 2024.
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Asia’s 50 Best Bars 2024, sponsored by Perrier, will be revealed at an event in Hong Kong on 16th July. The ceremony will be livestreamed on 50 Best Bars TV YouTube channel and 50 Best Bars Facebook page. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube to stay up to date with all the news and announcements.
