Like many of the proprietors of Tokyo's mini-live houses, Mashimo Mitsuo's first passion was music. Though these days he will deny any skill with a soprano sax, his regular customers wink and tell me otherwise. Of course, Mashi (as everyone calls him) doesn't deny having been the sound engineer at the Blue Note Tokyo for a decade before leaving five years ago to open Rakuya, a cozy little jazz izakaya in Naka-Meguro.
Rakuya, as the name suggests, is a very relaxed, homey sort of place -- an atmosphere that is amiably underscored by the presence of Q-chan, Mashi's playful little kitten. Q-chan is left unattended to leap onto laps and purr in the loving embrace of all its targets.
Of his Blue Note days, Mashi says, "It was wonderful being able to work with world-class musicians." But the acts who perform at Rakuya are more like his family.