Aoyama is full of small, high-end hideaways where service is delivered in studied silence and conversations are reduced to a whisper.
Velours, a newly opened lounge bar and restaurant in Minami-Aoyama, is every bit as chic as its neighbors but is anything but small. It occupies a wide basement hidden well off the main street -- even with a map it is hard to find.
The glass walls at the entrance are heavily tinted. Sliding doors open onto a bottom-lit hallway leading to the left and right -- a linear Zen garden of grape clusters traced in sand under a plexiglass catwalk. A collection of gilt-framed mirrors -- all neatly smashed -- at first confuse the senses, but not as much as the rusting bear traps that lie buried here and there in the sand underfoot (don't worry, they're underneath the see-through catwalk).