Izakaya in Singapore: A First-Timer’s Guide to Japanese Pub Dining

The first time most people walk into an izakaya, they do the same thing: sit down, open the menu at page one, and try to build a Western-style three-course meal out of it. Starter, main, dessert. It never quite works, because an izakaya isn’t built that way — and once you understand how it is built, it becomes one of the most enjoyable ways to eat and drink anywhere.

We run one. Habibi-san is a Japanese–Middle Eastern izakaya and charcoal grill on Hamilton Road in Jalan Besar, and this is the guide we wish every first-timer could read on the way over — how izakaya dining works, what to order and in what sequence, and the small unwritten rules that make the night flow. Everything here applies whether you’re coming to us or to any other izakaya in Singapore.

What an izakaya actually is

The word breaks down roughly as “stay-drink-place” — a spot where you settle in and drink, and the food arrives to keep the drinking pleasant. That origin explains almost everything that confuses first-timers. The plates are small because they’re built to accompany a glass, not to anchor a meal. The kitchen sends dishes out whenever they’re ready, not in polite courses. And the room is meant to be loud: an izakaya is Japan’s answer to the pub or the tapas bar, not a hushed dining room.

That last part matters in Singapore, where “Japanese restaurant” often conjures omakase counters and reverent silence. An izakaya is the opposite energy. Come with people you actually want to talk to.

The shape of a good izakaya night

There’s a rhythm to it, and it starts with drinks. Order those the moment you sit down — before you’ve even looked at the food menu. It’s the standard move in Japan and it works everywhere: the table gets a glass in hand within minutes, someone says kanpai (cheers — glasses touch, then drink), and the pressure evaporates. Nobody is hungry-waiting while someone deliberates over yakitori options.

Then order food in waves, not all at once. A sensible first wave is something cold or quick — pickles, a dip, edamame — plus one or two things from the grill. When those land, order the next round based on what the table is enjoying. A typical izakaya meal for two runs four to seven plates ordered across the evening, and the menu is designed for exactly that kind of grazing. Ordering everything upfront is the one real rookie error: you’ll get eight dishes in fifteen minutes and eat half of them cold.

Sharing is assumed. Plates go to the middle of the table, everyone picks at everything, and the kitchen will usually portion things so they divide easily. If you’re the kind of table that guards its own plate, an izakaya will gently retrain you.

What to drink (a working shortlist)

Every izakaya stands or falls on its drinks list, and a few categories come up everywhere:

  • Beer first. The classic opener. The Japanese draft-beer ritual is taken seriously — we pour Suntory The Premium Malt’s, in pilsner and black versions, and the first cold glass after a long day is most of the reason izakayas exist.
  • Highballs. Whisky or shochu lengthened with soda — light, dry, and endlessly compatible with grilled food. If you don’t know what to drink with charcoal-cooked anything, a highball is never wrong.
  • Sake. Don’t be intimidated by the labels. Tell the staff roughly what you like — crisp and clean, or richer and rounder — and let them steer. Our own list runs from a snow-aged junmai ginjo to a sparkling sake that behaves like a celebration in a 280ml bottle, and every bottle on it was chosen to stand up to smoke.
  • Umeshu and cocktails. Plum liqueur over ice is the easiest gateway drink in Japanese dining. Cocktail lists are where modern izakayas show personality — ours runs eight signatures that split the difference between Tokyo and Beirut, like a bourbon highball finished with smoked olives, and a yuzu-tequila number with a seaweed-salt rim.

How to read an izakaya menu

Most izakaya menus, ours included, organise loosely by size and cooking method rather than course. You’ll usually find:

  • Small cold things — pickles, salads, dressed vegetables, dips. Start here; they arrive fast.
  • Small hot things — fried or simmered plates, and anything the kitchen calls a snack.
  • The grill section — the heart of the genre. Skewers and proteins cooked over charcoal, often binchotan, the dense white Japanese charcoal that burns ferociously hot with almost no smoke flavour of its own, so what you taste is char and the ingredient rather than campfire.
  • Big plates — one or two per table, ordered late once you know how hungry you still are.
  • Rice and noodles — traditionally the finisher, eaten last to close the stomach, not alongside everything else.

At Habibi-san the same skeleton is there, but the small plates are mezze: hummus built on macadamia tahini and finished with ikura, smoked-eggplant babaganoush that took a detour through Japan, labne with smoked shimeji mushrooms. The grill section is where the two food cultures properly collide — our Lebanese charcoal chicken gets spatchcocked and given forty-five minutes over the fire, then served with a garlic-yuzu toum. The logic of ordering, though, is pure izakaya: waves, sharing, drinks throughout. If you want the deeper tour of where Japanese food in Singapore is worth your attention beyond the izakaya format, we’ve written a full guide to Japanese food in Singapore.

The etiquette that actually matters

Izakaya etiquette guides tend to overcomplicate things. In Singapore, five habits cover you completely:

  1. Drinks before food, and wait for the kanpai. Don’t sip before the table toasts. It takes ten seconds and it’s the whole ceremony.
  2. Pour for others, let them pour for you. With shared bottles — sake especially — filling your own glass is technically fine but filling your neighbour’s first is the move. It keeps everyone watching everyone else’s glass, which is the point.
  3. Order in rounds and don’t rush the kitchen. Grilled-to-order food takes the time it takes. That forty-five-minute chicken of ours is forty-five minutes because charcoal doesn’t negotiate.
  4. Share everything, respect the last piece. The final morsel on a shared plate has a name in Japanese drinking culture — the polite dance of “you have it, no you” — and offering it around before taking it is universal good manners.
  5. Loud is fine. That’s the format. You are not being rude by laughing in an izakaya. You’d be slightly odd not to.

Dress code, for the record: there isn’t one worth worrying about at most Singapore izakayas, ours included. Come from the office, come in shorts. Fun dining, not fine dining.

Counter or table? Solo or six?

If you’re two people, ask for the counter when there is one — watching the grill work is half the show, and izakayas are one of the few formats where solo dining at the counter is completely normal, even celebrated. Groups do better at tables where the plates can pile up in the middle. For bigger tables the smartest move at ours is the FEEEEED ME menu — our omakase-style option (minimum two people) where the chefs simply choose a procession of dishes and you stop having to make decisions. It exists precisely because ordering for six at an izakaya turns into a committee meeting.

Where we fit into all this

Habibi-san opened in December 2020 on Haji Lane, founded by two chefs who’d cooked Middle Eastern food together at Artichoke and wanted to run it through an izakaya’s logic — small plates, big fire, drinks at the centre. In October 2025 we moved the mothership to a shophouse at 29 Hamilton Road in Jalan Besar, and the original Haji Lane shopfront became Li’l Habibi, our smaller, skewer-focused sibling. The name says the whole thesis: habibi is Arabic for “my darling”; -san is the Japanese honorific. Two hospitality cultures, one room.

We cook over charcoal, the menu changes as good ingredients come and go, and the room behaves exactly the way this guide describes: drinks first, plates in waves, volume unapologetic. You can see the space and the food on our gallery and the current lineup on the menu.

Practical details for a first visit

  • Where: 29 Hamilton Road, Singapore 209198 — a short walk into Jalan Besar, between Lavender and Farrer Park.
  • When: Tuesday to Sunday, 5pm to 11pm. Closed Mondays. Weekend brunch runs Saturday and Sunday, 11am to 2.30pm.
  • Booking: walk-ins welcome when there’s room, but evenings fill — reserve a table to be safe, especially for groups.
  • Billing: prices carry a 10% service charge and no GST.

A small izakaya vocabulary, so nothing on a menu surprises you

  • Kanpai — “cheers.” The toast that opens the night. Wait for it before drinking; join it enthusiastically.
  • Otsumami — snacks designed for drinking alongside; the entire small-plates section of an izakaya menu is really otsumami by another name.
  • Otoshi — in Japan, the small unordered appetiser that appears with your first drink and acts as a seating charge. Most Singapore izakayas, ours included, skip the custom — but now you’ll know what happened if a mystery dish lands in Tokyo.
  • Kushiyaki — skewer-grilling in general; yakitori is specifically chicken. Both live over charcoal, which is why the words are often on the same menu page.
  • Binchotan — the dense white Japanese oak charcoal we mentioned earlier: brutally hot, nearly smokeless, the engine of a serious izakaya grill.
  • Omakase — “I leave it to you”: the chef decides. Usually associated with sushi counters, but izakayas run their own looser versions — that’s exactly what our FEEEEED ME menu is.
  • Umeshu — plum liqueur, sweet-tart, served neat, on rocks, or lengthened with soda. The friendliest door into Japanese drinks.
  • Highball — whisky (or shochu) and soda over ice. Dry, endless, and the definitive partner to anything charred.

That’s the whole induction. Order a drink before anything else, eat in waves, share everything, and let the grill set the pace. Once the rhythm clicks, you’ll understand why the izakaya — in any language — is the best format ever invented for a long evening with people you like. Come try it.

If you want that same format on the other side of town, our own Li’l Habibi keeps a charcoal counter running at 55 Haji Lane, Tuesday to Sunday from 5.30pm — and the rest of that street is mapped out in our Haji Lane food guide.

More from this series. The rest of Silo A, and the drinks writing that grew out of it:

The izakaya itself

What to drink

Fire and charcoal