When customers at North Sydney’s new Miji Bar & Grill want a fresh drink, they don’t have to ask a waiter, sommelier or bartender to make it for them. Several of Miji’s sake and wine options are self-serve, and there’s even a pour-yourself cocktail station where guests match Japanese spirits with syrups and toppings.

After working in hospitality venues across Beijing and Hong Kong, Miji owner Ian Ng says he found inspiration for his new venture in a grocery shop in Japan.

“There were all these sakes you could pour yourself. I thought ‘this is amazing’.”

While Ng admits there was little monitoring of sake consumption in that Japanese grocery shop, he’s happy to join a more tightly policed band of self-pour pioneers in Sydney.

In an age of stringent responsible service of alcohol, the free-flowing self-serve model is a welcome nod to customer empowerment. Sydneysiders can be trusted to pour our own drinks, although there are strict limits regarding how (and how much).

In 2023, Liquor & Gaming NSW released a game-changing code of practice focused on self-pour. Hospitality operators are required to monitor self-serve customers with a pre-paid card or token system limiting them to the equivalent of three standard drinks.

Responsible Service of Alcohol-trained staff must be on hand to assess if a customer’s card should be topped up.

Newtown’s self-serve craft beer “boozery” Buddy’s was an early adopter in 2023, but it has been baby steps for the movement since. A self-pour system doesn’t require a separate liquor licence, so precise figures on venues that have installed one are difficult to come by, but Miji is likely Sydney’s first sake specialist.

Ng dismisses the suggestion that self-serve booze is a cost-cutting model, explaining he still needs staff to keep drinks stations full, monitor alcohol consumption and top up cards. “It’s all about bringing fun,” he says.

While early customers have made some quirky cocktail combinations using Japanese whisky and vodka (and assorted garnishes from lime wedges to lollipops), Miji is first and foremost an izakaya with serious food credentials.

Chef Jacob Lee (no relation to the Jacob Lee who recently announced he was leaving his executive chef role Sydney restaurant group Kolture) worked at two-Michelin-starred Mingles in Seoul before landing at Miji. His opening menu includes rainbow trout with yuzu butter, king crab legs off the grill, sukiyaki beef hot pot and chicken gizzard skewers.

Meanwhile, Ng has tried to distill Tokyo’s street vibe with interiors that mix flashing neon lights and Japanese signage. And if you can’t find something you like at the drinks stations – where there are six different sakes on offer – there’s still an old-fashioned way to order, he says: “We also have a bar.”

Open lunch and dinner daily

T25/100 Miller Street, North Sydney, miji.com.au