NQ JPN, a new late-night concept from the team behind arcade bar NQ64, has opened on Berwick Street, Soho, bringing together a futuristic cocktail bar and club with a specialist arcade filled with cabinets imported directly from Japan.
Built around two contrasting worlds behind one door, NQ JPN combines late-night drinks and electronic music with an arcade experience showcasing specialist Japanese gaming machines.
The main NQ JPN bar is a darker, more grown-up evolution of the world created by NQ64. Black, red and chrome dominate the space, with saturated lighting, street-art influences and a futuristic, almost Neo Tokyo feel.
12 signature serves anchor the cocktail menu, combining flavours and ingredients including dragon fruit, matcha and cherry blossom. The menu features a Melon and Cucumber Daiquiri, Frozen Dragon Fruit Colada and Chilli Pepper Margarita, alongside alcoholic bubble teas, including Tequila, Apple and Yuzu, Japanese highballs, whisky and a considered alcohol-free range.
Open until 3am Mon-Sat, the bar pairs its drinks menu with bass-forward of tech house and associated sounds. On Fridays and Saturdays, DJs take over with a harder-edged electronic soundtrack, transforming the space into a late-night dance floor as the night progresses.
Beyond a translucent red butcher’s curtain, NQ JPN changes completely. The soundtrack shifts and the bar gives way to a dedicated arcade built around specialist machines imported directly from Japan.
The collection spans rhythm, action, driving and candy-cabinet games, including cult titles such as maimai, jubeat, Wacca and Dancerush – machines rarely encountered together in the UK, offering experiences that cannot simply be replicated on a home console.
The arcade draws on the visual language of late-90s and early-2000s gaming, manga and anime, reworking these influences through NQ64’s distinctive aesthetic to create something darker, stranger and more futuristic.
Within the arcade sits NQ Mart, a deliberately brighter, hyper-colour counter inspired by the energy of Asian convenience stores. Guests can create more than 2,000 different drink combinations by choosing a spirit, soft drink and flavoured syrup or foam. The offering also includes alcoholic bubble teas and more than 20 unusual soft drinks sourced from Japan, America, Thailand and beyond.
NQ JPN has opened at the former NQ64 site at 53–54 Berwick Street, following NQ64’s move to its much larger new Soho home at Orange Yard.
Rather than a new version of NQ64, NQ JPN has been developed as an entirely separate concept, taking inspiration from Japanese arcade and drinks culture and bringing it together with nightlife, electronic music, street art and a futuristic visual world of its own.
Matt Robson and Andy Haygarth, co-founders of NQJPN, said: “While NQ JPN comes from the same team as NQ64, we wanted to create something that feels completely different.
“The starting point was the games. We’ve brought over an incredible collection of arcade machines from Japan that you just don’t normally get to play here and built a whole new world around them.
“From there we’ve taken influences from Japanese drinks and gaming culture and mixed them with everything we love about late-night bars, electronic music, street art and arcade culture. The result isn’t supposed to recreate somewhere that already exists – it’s our own version of what a futuristic arcade bar can be.
“There are loads of details to discover, from cocktails made with Japanese ingredients, Purikura inspired photo booths to NQ Mart and an arcade that feels and sounds completely different from the room you’ve just left. We can’t wait for people to see it.”
