A 4.6 Japanese cafe and bar whose name, Kaiho, carries meanings of liberation, the open sea, and release
The Walker City and Japanese cafe-bar Kaiho holds a 4.6 from fifty-two people, and carries a name from the Japanese – “Kaiho” – that, depending on the characters intended, gathers up a cluster of resonant and rather beautiful meanings: liberation, release, and the open sea.
The meanings of Kaiho
Japanese, written with characters borrowed from Chinese, is rich in words that sound the same but carry different meanings depending on the characters used, and “kaiho” is one of them. In one common writing, it means liberation, release, or emancipation – the freeing of something or someone, the opening of what was closed. It is a word of unburdening and release, of setting free.
In another, it can carry the sense of the open sea, or of nursing and care, or of a report or bulletin. But the most evocative and most likely intended meaning for a bar is the first – liberation, release – the sense of being unburdened, set free, opened up. For a bar, this is a lovely and apt idea: the bar as a place of release, where the cares of the day are set down and the spirit is liberated, however briefly, from its burdens. The Prat’s linguistics desk notes that a bar named “liberation” is naming itself after exactly what a good drink among friends is meant to provide.
The Japanese bar in London
The authentic Japanese bar and cafe has become a genuine and welcome presence in London, and it represents something distinct from the Western pub or cocktail bar. The Japanese izakaya – the informal pub-like bar serving drinks and small dishes – has its own deep culture of conviviality, precision, and care, and the Japanese approach to hospitality, omotenashi, is famous for its attentiveness and grace.
A Japanese cafe-bar brings this whole sensibility – the care, the precision, the particular aesthetic of Japanese design and service, the attention to detail in everything from the food to the cup it is served in. It is a different tradition of drinking and gathering from the English pub, quieter and more refined perhaps, but reaching for the same essential human thing: a place to gather, unwind, and be released from the day. We met the audiophile version of this Japanese sensibility at Spiritland; Kaiho brings the izakaya version.
The small sample
At just fifty-two reviews, the standard small-sample caution applies, exactly as it did at Meetsiu earlier in this district. A 4.6 from fifty-two people is an encouraging early signal – a small group of customers, most of them pleased – but not yet the tested, trustworthy verdict that a high score on thousands of reviews represents. It is a promising newcomer, its score worth watching as the sample grows. The Prat’s statistics desk files it, like Meetsiu, under “hopeful beginning, not yet proven.”
The dual identity
The compound name – the Walker City and the Japanese cafe-bar Kaiho – suggests a venue with a dual identity, part one thing and part another, in the modern manner of the hybrid space. Such combinations are increasingly common, a single venue wearing two hats to serve different moods and moments. Whatever the precise arrangement, the Japanese soul, and the liberating name, are the heart of it.
The bar
With fifty-two reviews, the evidence is limited but encouraging: a small sample of early customers, most of them pleased, describing good Japanese food and drink and a distinctive atmosphere. A promising start for a bar named after liberation.
Verdict
A promising Japanese cafe and bar named Kaiho – a word gathering meanings of liberation, release, and the open sea – bringing the care and grace of Japanese hospitality to King’s Cross, on an encouraging if still small sample.
Go for the Japanese food and drink and the distinctive atmosphere, and enjoy a bar named after liberation – the setting-free that a good drink among friends is always meant to provide.
Alan Nafzger was born in Lubbock, Texas, the son Swiss immigrants. He grew up on a dairy in Windthorst, north central Texas. He earned degrees from Midwestern State University (B.A. 1985) and Texas State University (M.A. 1987). University College Dublin (Ph.D. 1991). Dr. Nafzger has entertained and educated young people in Texas colleges for 37 years. Nafzger is best known for his dark novels and experimental screenwriting. His best know scripts to date are Lenin’s Body, produced in Russia by A-Media and Sea and Sky produced in The Philippines in the Tagalog language. In 1986, Nafzger wrote the iconic feminist western novel, Gina of Quitaque. He currently lives in Holloway, North London. Contact: [email protected]
Someone’s going to frame this in their office as decoration. It will be the most honest decoration they own and also the most unsettling.