O’Connell is an Irish theme bar at Nippori. Across the road from the east exit of Nippori JR station, you can just see O’Connell in the photo below next to NaNa girlie bar which is next to McDonald’s.

O'Connell, Nippori

Inside O’Connell is a pretty standard Irish theme bar. It isn’t smoke free and I get the feeling the place could get quite smoky.

The bar at O'Connell

O'Connell taken from the rear

What isn’t normal is that as well as the standard Irish beers, Yona Yona, and Hoegaarden, O’Connell also has a range of Japanese craft beers in bottles from breweries like Baird, Hitachino Nest, and Shiga Kogen – all under 1000 yen. They also have one tap with either a Japanese guest beer or an import beer, and they have Magners on bottle also.

I was lucky enough to visit on a night when they had a special Sankt Gallen Yokohama XPA on draught - made for 4 times as many hops as usual. At 1000 yen for a US pint it was excellent value, though the US pint glasses they have at O’Connell look unnervingly small. I don’t like to be reminded I’m getting a US pint rather than a UK pint!

A midget pint of Yokohama XPA

Food was reasonable. The Egg and Sour Craft (=Saurkraut) pizza was an unusual combination but tasted pretty good, even though it was another “flour tortilla” pizza. The “normal size portion” of fish and chips had a fair amount of fish and tasted OK, but it was a little chewy and clearly from frozen. Still, I’ve had worse in Japan.

Fish and Chips

One thing I didn’t like is that even though the place was quite empty, a number of the tables had “reserved” on them. They removed one of the reserved signs to let us sit at one of the tables, but it had tiny stools which were quite awkward for my long legs and they wouldn’t let us sit at the more comfortable table next to it because some “men” had reserved it. The “men” never turned up. Clearly they are using “reserved” signs to force groups of 1 or 2 to sit at bar stools and make sure tables get maximum occupancy, ala Hub. I really don’t like that – yes, you get maximum occupancy if the place is full, but you also get customers remembering that they were forced into uncomfortable seats which will stop them returning.

The O’Connell website in English is here. Menus all have English and I think the Suzu-san (in charge of the bar) and the staff understand enough to cope with basic orders but not converse – which is reinforced by the map page on their website listing their phone number (03-3807-9555) but saying “Keep in mind that English may not pass.”

My opinion? There’s a void of decent bars around the north east of the Yamanote line. If I was in the area, I’d quite happily head here for a beer and to grab some bar food.