Caprice Craft Beer and Wine: The Bottom Line
Delicious Italian cuisine, beautifully presented and reasonably priced, and eight taps of Shonan beers. What’s not to like? Come to Tsujido, you fools!
Caprice Craft Beer and Wine: The Review
Rob often takes the piss out of me (British) for living in a backwater town like Tsujido. And it’s true, I do live in Tsujido. I don’t get the chance to go to Tokyo very often- maybe a few times a year. And while it is a bit quiet, it isn’t a complete wasteland, like some places I could name (coughNinomiyacough). Most importantly, I recently did a count and realised that there are now more craft beer bars here than in neighbouring Fujisawa. Y’know, Fujisawa. 41st busiest train station in the world! Former Gaijin Central, in years gone by. And it’s been usurped by little old Tsujido, where some trains don’t even stop! What’s going on?! We’ll get to that another time, or perhaps in this article, or maybe I’ll write a Soapbox about it.
(For the record, the craft beer bars are S-46 Beer Market, Tsujido Beer Hall, Timmy’s Cafe, Caprice, Monk and McKendy’s, which has only opened recently and is also a brewpub!)
Caprice is the one we’ll be looking at today, as you may have guessed. I walk past it every single day on my way to work. It’s about a 5 minute walk southeast from the station, almost diametrically opposite from S-46 Beer Market.
Go inside and you’ll see a familiar style of decor, similar to Mokichi, S-46 Beer Market, Urban BBQ Smokehouse and a lot of others: cast iron and wood. Don’t know why this style is so prevalent in Japanese craft beer bars. It’s nice though, and suits the place well.
There is seating for 40 people in the restaurant, with five seats at the bar. As you can see, in the evening the bar is well lit but not too bright (frequently a problem in bars in Japan, in my opinion), and the white walls go a long way to making the space feel fresh and not too dingy. It’s also spacious enough that you aren’t dancing around tables on your way to the toilet. The whole restaurant is non-smoking, and there is wi-fi as well.
Onto the food and beer! Caprice is a primarily Italian restaurant. I’d been only once before a few years ago and played it safe with some spaghetti, but this time we decided to go for some meat. And wow, look at that presentation. I got the roast pork shoulder with aromatic vegetables, and my friend went with the pork belly stewed in stout. The food looks as good as it tastes, which is to say it was delicious. Seriously, there are so many amazing chefs working in Shonan craft beer bars. In Caprice, the chef is Sato-san, who runs the kitchen while her husband runs the front of house. Both chef and manager are former Shonan Beer employees and have been running Caprice for over three years.
The beers, then, are mainly Shonan Beer offerings, although there will be an occasional guest beer. Much like S-46 Beer Market, then. The prices are similar too, with a glass (250ml) costing between 540yen and 750yen (750yen was a special price for Shonan Beer’s unicorn-blood-rare Triple IPA), and a “tall” (400ml) costing between 830yen and 1150yen. There are 8 taps, and new tap information is updated on the restaurant’s Instagram feed.
Lunch time is from 11:30 to 15:00 (Last order is 14:30) and features a set lunch menu with five options. It changes monthly and includes a starter, bread and a drink, and clocks in at between 1280yen and 1680yen. Dinner is from 17:30 to 23:00 (Last order 22:30). There’s a party course for 2500yen, and an all-you-can-drink deal for 2000yen for 2 hours which includes everything on the drinks menu, although you do have to order the party course to go with it.
The staff are friendly, the atmosphere is relaxing, and the food and beer is great and reasonably priced, so it was a little surprising to see that we were the only customers from the time we arrived at about 6pm until when we left at 8pm. It was a rainy Thursday, though, and I’ve seen the place absolutely heaving at lunch times. The street that it is located on doesn’t see much pedestrian traffic, and the restaurant has no car parking, so unless you know about this place there’s really no way you would stumble across it and be able to drop in if you were in a car. Which is a shame, because it’s an excellent restaurant. Caprice is yet another reason to get away from the bright lights and scary noises of the big city and come to Tsujido. Still probably won’t convince Rob, though.
Caprice Craft Beer and Wine: The Details
Open: Weekdays 11:30 – 15:00 (L.O 14:30) / 17:30 – 23:00 (L.O 22:30), Closed Mondays
Happy Hour: None
Smoking: No
Phone: 0466-38-6111
Homepage (in Japanese): Gurunavi Site
SNS: Instagram, Facebook
How to get to Caprice Craft Beer and Wine
The closest station to Caprice Craft Beer and Wine is Tsujido, as you may have guessed. It’s on the JR Tokaido main line, approximately 25 minutes away from Yokohama.
