How to order in an izakaya

An izakaya is a drinking room that feeds you, not a restaurant that happens to serve beer. You order a drink, food arrives in rounds, and the plates are for the table. The first confusion is the small dish that lands before you have asked for anything. That is the otoshi. It is a cover in the form of something you can eat, and it is on the bill. If you did not want it, say so when it arrives, before anyone tastes it. Once it is eaten, it is yours.

Sit where you are pointed. A counter is a good seat for two and a poor seat if you need to spread a map. Order the drink first. A draft beer is the ordinary opening. Tea or a soft drink is a complete order if you are not drinking. You do not owe the room a speech. Then ask for two or three small plates, and more when those are gone. A table that orders the whole menu at once gets a cold pile and a stuck kitchen.

There is usually a clock

All-you-can-drink offers are a timer. The minutes are posted. Last order comes before the end, and food is often outside the deal or on a clock of its own. Watch it the way you watch a train. The last train is the other clock, and it wins. An izakaya near the hotel is a kinder plan than a famous lane that strands you after midnight.

• Order a round, then another. Leave the menu where you can reach it.
• Cash still happens in small rooms. Ask before you sit if you only have a card.
• There is no tip. Extra coins make work, not warmth.
• Smoke rules differ. Some rooms are clear and some are not. The door or the booking page will say.
• Match the volume of the room. A loud table is what the next table remembers.

Osaka is an easy first night because the streets are already set up for wandering, and for a second choice when the first counter is full. The city after six is that walk. The same rules hold on a quiet Tokyo side street: the dish you did not order, the rounds, the bill that is not a suggestion. The afternoon gap is when many of these kitchens are dark. The izakaya is the evening they were keeping.

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How to leave well

Ask for the bill when you are finished. Lingering over empty glasses is fine when the room is quiet, and rude when people are waiting in the doorway. Stack the plates a little if the counter is tiny. Say thank you. That is the whole exit.

Dietary limits belong at the start, not after the third plate. Broths hide fish and meat. A short card in Japanese does more than mime. If the cook is not sure, believe them and go. There is another curtain down the street. A difficult half-hour in a six-seat room helps no one, including you.

One izakaya night is enough to learn the form. You do not have to collect them. The good ones feel like you were expected to sit, eat, and leave a little quieter than you entered.