Shigure

Incredible Japanese Whiskey selection. The
Bar is incredibly nice having a great eastern feel to it. You really feel like you have left New York when you go here.

Happy hour sake flight of three sakes for $ 16.
Sat at the bar and the bartenders were super busy and just running around. Not my favorite type of environment.
The food was all just ok. The fried renkon ($ 7) was too thick and starchy. The fried chicken ($ 6 during hh) was probably the best thing we ate. The firefly squid ($ 13) was sad and bland. The pork belly ($ 9) was chewy and tough. We also had a few other dishes, but they were completely not memorable.
I would say this is more of a neighborhood spot. Definitely do not make a special trip just to come here.

Shigure was quiet on Monday evening when I came with a friend from out of town. There were a few other people, mostly at the bar, but they kept their voices low out of respect for the space and the surroundings.
The space isn’t huge, and dark shades of brown that cover the walls and booths make it seem even more quiet and small. It’s a private cave where one can eat and drink in privacy.
As you might expect from an upscale sake bar in TriBeCa, the food and drink selection are well curated and generally excellent. Our sake, selected with the help of our server, was filled with the taste of fruit without being overly sweet.
The small plates are small but satisfying. We split some of the charcoal grilled shrimp, while I also had shio-​koji fried chicken and duck cha-​shu after my friend went off for other dinner plans. The duck cha shu was a particular revelation, as I’m not sure to the fattiness of the duck being prepared in the style of roast pork.
There may not be much buzz in this restaurant, either in or outside of the establishment, but it is very much worth getting excited about.

Very authentic Japanese food. Delicious. A little too dark and tables are pretty old.

sake flights & fried chicken. that is all.
tried a few of their other dishes but i kept reordering the fried chicken. edamame? basic. pickled veggies? meh. honestly nothing i had was memorable. sorry! its an interesting place. you may totally miss it, but the chicken is definitely worth a try.

Tuesday August 11 — good energy and I had a good time
but…
Thursday August 13 — like a cemetery… empty with nobody inside at 6pm Happy hour…
and the two ladies who work there Thursday 6pm Aug. 13 have no personalities, maybe they are robots. They did not want to talk to me, the only customer… they talked to each other but refused to say more than two words to me…
it was very depressing…
anyway.
Try the Sake flight 5pm — 7pm… very good
Shinriki Ginjo Sake. is good
Also try
the fried chicken and Pork Belly is awesome…= very good.

I’ve now been back to Shigure a good dozen times and every time I visit I like it more and more. Other places I get tired of over time, but with Shigure it just gets better and better. In NYC, it may be the perfect combination of décor, atmosphere, food, drinks, and staff. It just all works so amazingly well together.
Atypical for an izakaya, the really high ceilings give it a light airy space and make it feel larger than it is. There really aren’t all that many seats, but the spacing of the tables and the high ceilings gives it a much larger feeling. Bonus points for the his/​hers toilets complete with Toyo Washlets. The huge map of Japan with all of the prefectures numbered is a nice touch as well, though it’s a mystery why the list starts at 10.
Booze wise, they don’t have the biggest shochu selection in NYC, but they definitely have a very thoughtful and well curated list. Highlights include Kawabe (rice), Nakanaka (barley), and Yachiyoden (sweet potato). Lots of Japanese craft beers are fun to explore as well. Japanese whisky and sake are available too, of course. And nice selections of both.
Foodwise, the daily specials are always worth exploring, particularly their sashimi specials, often flown in direct from Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo! The fried chicken is amazing. One dish I have to order every single time is the Kuro Subuta, which is the Japanese version of sweet and sour pork. And it eclipses that basic Chinese dish amazingly well. One other food tip. There are housemade pickles for order on the chalkboard above the bar, but they don’t appear in your food menu. These are a strange assortment of pickling experiments including tomato and avocado. As you can imagine, some are better than others, but all are worth trying if only for the novelty. Other menu items are solid to fantastic.
I’d echo what I wrote previously. People need to find this place. Seriously. It’s criminal that it’s not busy every single night. While it’s definitely busier than it was when they opened, it’s still too easy to get a table any night of the week. Maybe now that the weather is nice again, people will start heading out to these hard to reach locations for some amazing food.
Oh, and after dinner, pop downstairs for some live jazz at b-​flat, purported to have the best ice in NYC. No idea if that rumor is true.
Kampai!

My boyfriend and I decided to take advantage of the gorgeous, summer-​like weather outside on Saturday (⁰⁴⁄₁₈) and went into the city for a variety of errands and aimless wandering. Around 6 or so, we stopped in front of this place, considered it would be worth a shot to take a look at the menu, and went inside. We ended up staying for dinner, and I’m glad we did.
One (minor) side note before I go into the details of our meals: the hostess/​server was very specific about where she wanted us to sit, even though she waved her arm towards a row of seats towards the back of the restaurant behind the bar. We initially sat down at a two-​diner table in the middle, but she came around and pointedly asked us to move to the four-​diner table to our left. She did this with another couple who came in right around the time we asked for the check. They sat down at the same two-​diner table and she came around like a torpedo and ushered them to the four-​diner table to the far right. Slightly anal-​retentive, but I was willing to let it go.
We were both intrigued by the drink list, especially the plum wine blended with sake. We’re big fans of plum wine and sake but combine the two? Really? This we had to see (and taste) to believe, so we each decided to try two different variations: my boyfriend ordered the Nanbu Bijin, and I ordered the Saiga. His plum wine/​sake was much lighter than mine, both in color and flavor. It also had a hint of a fruity aftertaste. Mine was much darker (it had brown sugar mixed into it) and had a much fuller, robust taste (think red wine mixed with sugared plum juice). All in all, we enjoyed what we had.
Browsing through the menu, we realized that a lot of Shigure’s fare seemed to be based on small dishes, so we split seven dishes between us: the Atsu age (sic?), which was deep fried tofu topped with grated ginger; the avocado-​potato salad (surprisingly good), which came with two crispy yuba chips on each side and a small poached egg on top; the Washugyu Tataki (tiny pieces of thin-​sliced medium-​rare Washugyu beef with a side of wasabi/​kizami sauce and tiny sauteed mushrooms); the Smoked Salmon (thinly sliced smoked salmon mixed with shredded raw onion and a light dill cream); the Smoked Plate, which was three pieces of smoked tuna, scallops, and a grape tomato and a smoked quail egg; the Maguro Sashimi (six pieces of tuna sashimi); and, finally, the Smoked Chicken (pieces of grilled/​smoked chicken served with curry salt and what looked to be soy sauce).
Everything was delicious, with the highlights of our meals being the avocado-​potato salad and the Smoked Plate. I especially liked the artful presentation of our food (nothing blended together or spilled over into each other), and the overall mood of the place was very relaxed and casual. The lighting’s a bit dim, but I think that’s just part of the environment Shigure wants to cultivate: a laid-​back, soothing atmosphere where you can sip your sake while noshing on some Japanese tapas.
It took a while for us to get our check, but other than that, the service was prompt, our servers were polite, and we left Shigure feeling full and satisfied. I’ll definitely come back again to sample some more of their unique dishes.

I really like this place. Its casual, unique and friendly.
the prices are just right, and the food options allow for multiple visits and lots of experimentation.
Good for a couple or small group of 4 – 6.
Grab a saki flight and get some recommendations from your server.

This place is pricey but that comes with the territory of sake in NYC. The dishes are small but unique and masterfully prepared. I had the smelt tempura, pork kakuni, smoked chicken, Shigure salad and a miso soup prepared with sake lees. All tasty but be prepared to spend a big chunk of change if you want to feel full.
The space has good bones but the atmosphere needs improvement. If they reworked the lighting to be more intimate and relaxing I’d recommend this place for a drink with light appetizers.

Unusual place for me to even try – the storefront is ‘coy’ (just a logo/​symbol; no restaurant name or signage, no way to tell anything about the place as you’re entering it).
Inside – unusual for a sushi restaurant – the booths, tables, and floor are old, ratty wood; unvarnished, splintery. Bar to the left as you saunter to the back. Its as much a sake bar and drinker’s lounge, as it is a sushi place. But with a ‘dive-​bar’ feel. Confusing.
Hanging lamps; misty atmosphere. Kinda looks like a rustic Japanese joint in an old b&w movie by Ozu, Ichikawa, or Kurosawa. Waitresses are surprisingly shabbily dressed; they slouch over to your table like its a burden to be separated from the cellphone conversation they were having.
In general, this is the problem: its not a serious restaurant and I don’t know how that can be. If you’re serving me raw fish you’d better take it super seriously. I don’t eat raw fish in a place run by kids, or one which has kids as well ‘hanging out’ in little coteries, yukking it up (har dee har har) over whatever’s on their cellphones. Sheesh.
Drink prices: standard for Manhattan $ 14 or so. Creative drink menu but not extraordinary. Still, you can always get a Kirin lager for $ 7. But for the reasons above, we didn’t order any food.

It might be considered blasphemy to some to enter a sake bar and not order anything to drink… but Shigure was nonetheless an easy choice for dinner. It’s one of the only sake bars and izakayas to be found in TriBeCa, and on a weekday evening, was at a dull murmur thanks to a handful of other groups present. Don’t mistakenly head down the stairs to its sister speakeasy, B Flat, although it might make for a good post-​dinner venue. The interior is composed of dark oak, high ceilings, and a plethora of seating options, from seats at the bar (perhaps better for those going in solo), booths for larger groups, and a handful of two-​tops towards the back.
Once my friend arrived, we started going through the extensive menu, attempting to narrow down our choices for dinner. The options are tempting, to say the least, covering a sampling of chilled and cold plates to heavier grilled and braised dishes, and daily specials will only increase the difficulty of making a final decision.
Our first plate to arrive was one of the specials: Ebi Shinjo Hasami Age. We’d been warned beforehand about the temperature of the dish, but still managed to burn the roofs of our mouths after taking our first bite. Each piece consists of two slices of lightly battered and fried eggplant sandwiching a few pieces of fried shrimp. The seasoning was light and spot on, complemented only by a simple dashi broth at the bottom of the bowl. The following dish, the Avocado Potato Salad, was probably the one disappointment of the evening. The salad was too monotonous in texture and flavor, composed of creamy avocado and potatoes, and was already rich enough without the addition of a poached egg. It definitely need a crisp carbohydrate to counter, but the appearance of only two Yuba chips left much to be desired.
The following Duck Cha-​Shu was far more satisfactory and is probably one of my favorite presentations of this protein to date. Several slices of duck breast are marinated and slow-​cooked, and complemented by the chives, curled watercress, and wasabi. A very simple dish, yes, but executed to perfection with just the right seasoning, it made for one of the more memorable bites of the evening. In a close tie, however, was the Gindara Kasu-​Yaki, grilled black cod marinated with Dassai Dai Ginjo, a light, balanced sake. The cod was tender and supple, and each section of the protein easily gave way at the prodding of our chopsticks. There was a deep caramelization at the edges of skin, which offered a delightful crispness and sweetness to each bite.
To finish our meal, the Kobe Beef Sukiyaki. We had to ask for bowls of rice to go with this dish, as it’s traditionally served with udon or soba, and there would have been a fair amount of leftover sauce otherwise. The beef was thinly sliced and well-​marinated and the shimeji mushrooms and celery root slices were appreciated additions. We made sure to cut into the poached egg on top and mix before eating, however, as it added an element of richness to the plate.
I’ve found at a lot of venues that tout the strength of their liquors and drinks that the food often gets put on the wayside. Thankfully, Shigure is not one of these places, and I’d be more than happy to return to try out a few more items on their menu.

Upon entering Shigure, you know you are in a legit sake bar when the bar wall is lined with sake and wine up to the ceiling. I love the dim, mellow atmosphere. Music isn’t too loud as well so you can actually have a chat accompanied by sake and tapas.
I used the $ 40 Groupon for this visit and the staff happily accepted it along with saying it covered even the happy hour as well.
Sake Flight (3 for $ 15.00) — Part of their happy hour from 5:00 to 7:00. You get to choose from 9 varieties of sake. Great way to sample their selection.
Shishito Yaki-​Bitashi ($ 4.00) — Ordered this during the happy hour special. This dish of shishito peppers looks simple but it was one of my favorites of the meal. The peppers were mildly spicy and smoky but it was the dashi broth that made this super tasty. The best part is biting into a pepper and getting a squirt of dashi broth. (⁹⁄₁₀)
Shio-​Koji Fried Chicken ($ 6.00) — Another dish that I am glad was on the happy hour menu. You get 5 pieces of juicy fried chicken. The chicken wasn’t heavily salted which was a good thing. (⁸⁄₁₀)
Duck Cha-​Shu ($ 9.00) — The duck breast was very tender and full of flavor with hints of wasabi. Even though it looks kind of raw, the taste is worth the appearance. (8.5÷10)
Kuro Subuta ($ 8.00) — This was a dish of fried pork in a syrupy sweet and sour vinegar sauce. It tasted and looked like it belonged in a Chinese fast food restaurant. The meat wasn’t crispy and the sauce was too sour. (⁶⁄₁₀)
I was going to give Shigure 4 stars until I saw that they have the toilets that washes your behind. There is a front rinse, a back rinse, and a dryer function. First time I ever saw these toilets in a restaurant. Warning: Not to be used if you are ticklish.

A really cool sake bar and a hidden gem in Tribeca. This place has a quiet, understated but groovy and retro vibe with antique Japanese shochu & beer posters on the brick walls.
The sake list is fabulous. I enjoy asking questions and learning about different, unusual sake. Their ring folder menu consists not only a long sake list, but also lists of beer, shochu, whiskey, wine, and cocktails (w sake or shochu and other japanese ingredients). ($ 9~$ 13/​per on average.)
Food is very good. Some are simple but taste very much like good homemade food in Japan. Yes, shio-​koji karaage is great, so juicy. (I like shio-​koji everything :)) Wagyu tataki is fabulous. Food is not cheap, but each dish is a good portion (tapas dish) to be shared w/​3 people. The special soup for 2 is so big and hearty w/​salmon that it was too much for me and my husband.
The people are really friendly but never pushy. They leave you alone, which can be translated to slow service. But this is a place you come to relax, linger, and to have conversations over good food and drinks like so many bars in Japan. The background music is also groovy but dim and soft.

Yum! What a great new find! No wait ftw
I’m not a sake connoisseur so didn’t fully appreciate all the choices.
The food though was great. I had the avocado potato salad (really bizarre but delicious), pork belly kakuni (a single was fine for 2 ppl– order rice), and the sashimi special.

Not impressed… like, at all. I used a 50% off Scoutmob deal here (max of $ 20 discount) and even after that, I’m not sure it was worth the expense.
My friend and I ordered a little too much food — you only need about 4 or 5 dishes (don’t double). Think of it as a Japanese tapas spot.
We ordered quite a few things from salmon roe on rice to pork belly to sashimi-​type dishes — all of which weren’t anything to be impressed by.
The fried chicken — not seasoned very well and quite bland. Does not come with any sauce, but it’s nicely fried and battered.
Pork belly kakuni — we also ordered a double of this and it was hard to finish. So much meat and that’s it. Very fatty.
Salmon roe on rice — easily the best dish. Tastes exactly what it sounds like.
Avocado potato salad — meh. Not enough avocado.
Fish on bonito was personally my favorite, but my friend hated it. Maybe I have a thing for raw fish, but I think all the different flavors meshed quite well together.
The atmosphere is quite interesting– seems like this would be a hot spot at night for a few drinks. Overall though, not very impressed at all by the food and the prices.

I’ve been toggling between a 2 and 3 star rating. The food and drink here is excellent. But the prices are sky high, and the portions all about the size of my palm. I guess the theme here is to do an upscale izakaya (Japanese tapas), but it feels a little insulting to order so many dishes and drinks and still leave with an empty stomach (and wallet).
If you’re still interested in checking this place out, I’d recommend ordering the karagi (fried chicken). DON’T get any of the grilled options. You’re paying about $ 2-​$ 4 PER PIECE of meat on a stick.
Nice space, and quiet so it’s great to go on a date or to catch up with friends.

In the land of baby carriages we call Tribeca, lies a sake watering hole called Shigure.
There seems to be an on-​going theme with similar establishments as dark wooden oak seems to always play the overall layout of the place. I’m not complaining as it gives character and a sense of sophistication to the ambiance.
You won’t be «wow’ed» by the fare here as nothing i ordered here (food wise) was memorable. The duck cha-​siu tasted like roast beef to me, is that weird? Charcoal grilled shrimp was exactly what it sounded like — while being tasty, it’s a bit pricey for what you get. Sho koji fried chicken was also decent but I’m not sure how you can mess up chicken kaarage?
In my option, Shigure shines with its extensive sake menu which bolsters over 40 different kinds of rice wine as well as several options for shochu. They even have Japanese whiskey by my favorite company — Suntory.
The bartender and staff were very nice. Even recommended me a fruity-​er tasting sake that i enjoyed thoroughly but wasn’t going to admit willingly. She understood my bravado and even told me that particular sake was one of the owner’s favorite.
Great place for a pre/​post dinner drinks if you enjoy sake/​shochu/​japanese whiskey. If you plan to drink here, your best bet would be to order a bottle. Might be cheaper that way.
tip — Happy hour runs from 5−7pm

Very cute place. Good food, good service. Half sake bar, half restaurant.
Had a very pleasant meal. Went at 9pm. It was not iverly busy. I was able to walk in without a reservation.
See my pictures of the following items.
Grapefruit Tea — Good — Nice grapefruit notes and I like the cast iron tea cup
Shishito Yaki-​Bitashi — Very Good, but would prefer more grilled with a glaze and less broth
Charcoal Grilled Shrimp — Very Good
Washugyu Tataki– Roasted and thin sliced Washugyu Beef served with KIZAMI-​wasabi sauce — Very Good
Duck Cha-​Shu — Very Good
Gindara Kasu-​Yaki — Good, but I prefer a sweeter Miso Glaze
Shoi-​Koji Fried Chicken — Ok but a little bland
Anago Yuba-​Maki — Yuba wrapped Sea Eel — Very Good
Obanzai — 3 small appetizers — Noodles, Seaweed and Tofu — Good
Avocado Potato Salad — Good
Kuro Subuta — Very Good
I highly recommend Shigure if you are looking for a quiet, casual japanese meal.

A sake bar that has flown under the radar in the half year that its been open, undeserved, as it is an engaging if quiet place. Located above and sharing ownership with the Japanese cocktail bar, B Flat, Shigure feels more spacious than it is by way of high ceilings. The attractive bar area is filled with shelves of liquor bottles, resting also on a series of steps descending from the windows that recall Kaidan Tansu, or step chests. Several tables fill out of the rest of the dining room, albeit not in the most efficient way. The space is appointed in dark woods and bricks, not terribly imaginative but comfortable. Wait staff were very friendly and eager to help.
Sake bar foremost, they have plenty available, and offer flights that make it easy to try up to 9 different sakes for very reasonable prices. They also have excellent shochu and Japanese beer selections. Check the blackboard for additional specials, both alcohol and food.
The food menu is concise, serving more as drink accompaniments, but their quality elevated them to far better than merely bar snacks. Portions were not large, such than our party of two tried nearly everything on the menu in one meal with our sake. I was mostly pleased with the food offerings. Many were subtle, which is not to say bland, but don’t expect bold flavors. Preparation was very good, and many were appealing to the eye. At the same time, little was memorable. Instead, there was a home-​cooked quality to the food that was quite appealing in its own way.
Shigure is a modern sake and shochu bar that manages to sidestep trendiness, feeling instead, somehow, to be an old place that’s always been there. Well worth a visit for Japanese liquor, with comforting food.